Becoming the writer I want to be

1534 words today. Chapter is done.

 

Finished the chapter today and sans a few haikus, I'll be focusing on my essay today. I may finish that up.

 

I finished the newly reconstituted chapter 7 today. It's rough. I'll probably need to revise it 4+ times.

I cut the book into multiple parts to help with computer performance but I can't find some. I know they are backed up but it's a pain.

 

7512 words overall this week, bringing my new page total to 298.

 

You are flying!

 

Thank you!

 

First haiku in around a week. Hope you enjoy.

Alone on a hill.
Sky alight with fire before
stars come out to play.

Cloudless evening sky.
Curving above, blue like ice.
Harbinger of cold.

 

I got nothing done. I am missing chapters I spent lots of time revising. I need to buckle down and find them or get an old version going again.

Reset again as well. Not great times but It's about to be a new week.

 

1679 words today. On the face of it, I wrote a good amount, and what I wrote is fine for a first draft, but at the same time I cannot shake the feeling I have done something wrong. I think this stems from how the writing actually went, as I kept stopping for ages to deliberate over tiny changes in single sentences and was starting to really annoy myself with it. As a result of this I ended up working for nearly an hour longer than I wanted to and now I feel very drained, and I felt tired before I started anyway due to not sleeping amazingly well. Overall I just dont feel too great I suppose and its affecting my rational judgement. I'm sure when I go back and read the work it wont be any better or worse than it usually is.

One thing I do need to do is improve my planning process. I already plan things out in detail but its obvious I need to do it more, to avoid these instances where my usual efficiency comes to a total halt because I suddenly realise I haven't explained something or I abruptly recognise a plot hole. As I write more, this kind of thing will happen more and more, so I need to be wary of it going forwards. This current chapter is a perfect example of why I need to be even more detailed, because if I had put an extra ten minutes of thought into it, I would have realised I had not given myself enough to work from when writing actually began, and instead had just written down lots of chronological notes, some of which contradict each other. I have no idea why this chapter plan was so jumbled when other chapter plans are not, but I'm annoyed at myself for not noticing sooner than I did. As a result, a chapter which I was pretty sure will take longer than a week to write DEFINITELY will, even if I work at full speed every day until then. Thats the nature of the beast I guess, as its a long, detailed chapter, but still. I cant help but feel a bit down about it, as I really wanted to spend today writing action scenes, not painstakingly going over one paragraph for an hour.

 

Working on the edits this morning. I've eliminated over 100 words so far through the revisions and rewrites. I'm at 4,837 words at the moment, but this may increase or decrease based on how much I cut out or add.

 

I decided to go into my plans and saw, to my surprise, that the current chapter is the last one I have planned out in total detail. So that means, for whatever reason, this is the only one thats ended up messed up. Taking that into account, my new goal is try and get this chapter finished before the end of next week, and then spend the rest of the week planning out the next set of chapters, making sure I am as detailed as possible. This should avoid some problems in the future, but not all. I sometimes feel like writing this book series is turning into me unknowingly tying knots that I then have to unravel at a later date. This isnt actually true, like at all, but damn it feels like it. My own perception of whats happening is overriding whats actually happening and I dont like it.

 

Well, I just worked on my first batch of haikus. I had 10, but edits and revisions reduced it down to 9, which is still a pretty good amount for January. I've got a few of my favorites that I'm sharing below:

abundant snow days;
returning to white sprinkles
after years of grey

our meditations
mirror the blue swimming pool,
taking us away

opportunity
disburses and deposits
with fortune's mercy

 

I like all three, good stuff!

 

746 words today. Half the words I wrote yesterday but I like what I wrote so much more, so meh.

 

Thanks, man! I appreciate hearing that. How has your haiku writing been going?

 

Well enough, trying to get at least one or two done a week, but I only do it when the inspiration strikes.

 

I'm the same way. Do you know how many you've written so far?

 

Off the top of my head I want to say around 30? Maybe a bit more but not all are good enough to be kept without tweaks.

 

Have you thought of ever gathering a bunch and maybe publishing them at some point?

Also, I'm at 4,825 for the edits on the chapter. I should be on schedule to complete it by Friday.