Becoming the writer I want to be

Your consistency has been great to see, keep up the good work!

 

Dude, I don't think a forum isn't enough assistance. I recommend getting a therapist. It isn't a negative thing, many people go to them for assistance with overcoming things like unjustifiable anger, miss-attribution of fault, etc. Wish you the best man, hope you get some help.

 

Theres nothing wrong with me, you are just a jackass. Go away.

 

1918 words today. The prologue is complete.

 

Chapter 1 (8/3/20 to 8/15/20): 5026 words
Chapter 2 (9/7/20 to 9/15/20): 3308 words
Chapter 3 (8/17/20 to 8/27/20): 5019 words

Last Week: 2977 words

Monday: 576 words
Tuesday: 788 words

So I wrote 405 words for the chapter, which was not that bad. I focused on finishing the ending and although it falls a bit short of what my quota was for the story, it is almost complete. I am going to go back tomorrow and work on the one section I have to finish and it should get me over 3000 words, which is my goal for the chapter. The other 380 words or so came from me working on my short story yesterday afternoon and some this morning when I hit a wall with my chapter writing. I am eager to get this one finished and start editing them next week so that I can get those ready and then put this off to the side for two weeks to study for my interview, write a few odes, work on the short story I am doing, and get some novel notes down so that I actually know what I am doing and not trying to wing it. I got lucky in Chapters 1-3 since I thought of everything before hand. Chapter 4 was the first one to have any difficulties and so I am going to write out some notes on the plot, characters, and make sure that when I come back to it for the next batch of chapters, I am more precise and focused on what direction I want the story to go in.

Thank you so much! Both you and @Anakin66 have been very helpful in inspiring me to keep a consistent word quota. I believe I have written more in the past month than what I have done all year in creative writing.

 

Same here, I have managed to churn out more work than ever before since joining this thread. Please remind me, how long is this book of yours going to be? I would like to read it when its done if thats OK with you?

 

Me too. I have been trying to find a consistent writing habit for years and nothing worked. I actually found this thread by accident because I was bored and saw a recent comment on it (from you) and the title spoke to me so I wrote a comment and it went from there. I did not mention the length, but if I have chapters ranging anywhere from 3k to 5k, I would like for this book to be anywhere from 72,000 words to 100,000 words, with an average range of roughly around 80,000 to 85,000 words in total. It will have 24 chapters and an epilogue: the first six alternating from the perspectives of the two main characters before the other 18 reverting to a more traditional format and telling the story as one perspective.

I would not mind if you read it. Take into mind that when this is complete, this is the first novel I have ever done. Previous attempts never made it past a few pages at the most and it has taken me almost five years to even get this off the ground so my writing will be a bit different and it is focused on realism/modernism so you may have to adjust yourself to a different style of work than what science fiction or fantasy is (with the latter being a genre I want to write another novel in after completing this one). I would offer to read your book as well, but I am in my final semester of college at the moment so I have a lot on my plate. Maybe once when I graduate, I can be willing to take a look if you want.

 

728 words today. Noticeably less than the previous two days but it was unavoidable as the chapter itself is very short and is only there to catch the reader up to speed with what has changed in the time jump from book 1 to book 2. Regardless, the chapter is done and the story "proper" can begin with the next chapter, as we finally get back to our protagonists from book 1.

 

Chapter 1 (8/3/20 to 8/15/20): 5026 words
Chapter 2 (9/7/20 to 9/15/20): 3308 words
Chapter 3 (8/17/20 to 8/27/20): 5019 words
Chapter 4 (9/16/20 to 9/23/20): 3409 words

Last Week: 2977 words

Monday: 576 words
Tuesday: 788 words
Wednesday: 664 words

I completed Chapter 4 this morning. Chapters 1 and 3 are around 5k with Chapters 2 and 4 being around 3.3-3.4k respectfully. Now my plan is to make Chapter 5 around 3k and Chapter 6 around 5k, but I will have to see what my outlines are and what I am capable of coming up with. As per usual, I will not look at the documents for the rest of the week, giving myself a break and to prepare for the editing that will come next week and after that is done, I will take two weeks off to organize my notes, work on some odes, practice for my interview, etc, thus giving myself a chance to breathe and not get burned out on this project because I have never made it this far in a manuscript before. Now the word counts for Chapters 2 and 4 are subject to change once when I go through and edit them, but at the moment, since I will unlikely write any more chapters for the rest of Septemeber, I have written 16,762 words, which with Times New Roman font 11, single spacing, that is almost 35 pages. If you take that and divide in 2, that is 17.5, so I am roughly writing between 17 to 18 pages per month. With that math, I will have anywhere from 85 to 102 pages by the end of the year, depending on how much I write.

So yeah, I am a bit happy considering how far I have made it into this manuscript, overcoming my past failures, and showing me that to quit PMO forever is to gain writing experience that could see my dreams come true.

Yes, it does. You can see above just how much I have done on this book in this past month or so. The rest of my counter for the week will be occupied by how much writing I do on a short story I am working on. I hope to complete that by the end of the month.

 

Little over 1000 words today. Not as many as I wanted to get done and I feel like I could allocate myself more time but I am going to force myself to stop for the day regardless. I really struggled writing today because it is the first chapter with the protagonists from the last book, introducing a new status quo for the characters, in a new location that is drastically different from any previous location. I spent most of my writing time today working out the first half a page, and was seriously worried I would end up with less than 300 words done today. Thankfully once I had that part down and the dialogue started, it came a lot more naturally and now the location is established elaborating on it further will be much easier. I still do expect to struggle a little bit for at least another couple of weeks as these early chapters take shape. Once I get back into the swing of things progress should speed up. I dont expect to run into this issue with book 3 as it continues directly on from the end of book 2 and as such I dont need to spend time establishing anything.

 

Chapter 1 (8/3/20 to 8/15/20): 5026 words
Chapter 2 (9/7/20 to 9/15/20): 3308 words
Chapter 3 (8/17/20 to 8/27/20): 5019 words
Chapter 4 (9/16/20 to 9/23/20): 3409 words

Last Week: 2977 words

Monday: 576 words
Tuesday: 788 words
Wednesday: 664 words
Thursday: 507 words

A bit later than usual, but I did work on the short story this afternoon and got over 500 words in on that and it is now up to three pages. I am aiming for it to be around 5 pages, no more than 6, which will make it one of the shorter works I have done in a while story-wise.

 

1845 words today. I feel like after a tough time getting started yesterday I am back on track, although I did give myself more time to write today as I had the extra time and figured why not considering its the weekend tomorrow so I wont be working. I didnt get the chapter done but I didnt expect to. I should get that complete early next week.

 

Chapter 1 (8/3/20 to 8/15/20): 5026 words
Chapter 2 (9/7/20 to 9/15/20): 3308 words
Chapter 3 (8/17/20 to 8/27/20): 5019 words
Chapter 4 (9/16/20 to 9/23/20): 3409 words

Last Week: 2977 words

Monday: 576 words
Tuesday: 788 words
Wednesday: 664 words
Thursday: 507 words
Friday: 315 words

A bit late again, but I did not do a bunch of writing today because of the fact that I had a headache and have spent most of the day resting because of how exhausted I am. I hope this does not put a dent in my final paper that I will have to do over the weekend, but I am sure that with some relative rest tonight, I can feel better. There is not a whole lot to say on my end.

This Week: 2850 words

So I was close to matching the same word count. It is okay that I did not write as much today because there are days like this from time to time. Now I have to get through this research paper before I start editing the two chapters I have written next week.

 

Read through and made minor edits to this weeks work. I managed to get 6800 words written this week.

 

1930 words today. The chapter is so close to being done but I just dont have time to add what little is left. Tomorrow I will finish it and then more than likely use my free time to plan the chapter after that.