Sunday, September 23, 2012

Day 63: The Week of Babies

Wow, has it been a week since I posted last? Never fear! I have been writing faithfully every night. 3 nights I have spent working on a new short story, 2 nights beta reading, and the remainder working on lesson plans (drama!). I can't say much for my word count in the short story, but its not for a lack of time or effort - I've just been extra tired, and that means a lot of molasses thoughts.

So, a bit about my personal life. Why so tired? First off, it was one of those weeks where every one I asked got back to me with "Yes, let's get together." Yay for nice weather and play dates! We came this close to over booking ourselves and I went to bed early many nights.

So, of course this would be the week that... My friend had a baby! She was in labor for days and I was holding my breath for the good news! Yay for her healthy baby boy!

And then there's my baby. He's 14 months old as of today and recently we started putting him in the crib to sleep, but only last night did I dare count how many times he wakes up to "eat" each night. 4. In a 12 hour period (every three hours on average). Since forever. Now that I have to get up to comfort him it is officially destroying my sleep, and no 1 year old needs to eat that often at night. That's infant rates, that is! In fact, I'm sure it was partly my friend having a baby that motivated me to evaluate where we are at a year after our baby was born. We all deserve better sleep - including the baby!

So, he is learning. And learning involves being awake longer in the middle of the night. Temporarily... I hope. ;) And don't even get me started on mythical nap time!

All of this going on, and yet, this is not a list if excuses. I still wrote every night!

Who knows what adventures next week will bring? Amongst those adventures will be writing, as always! This nightly writing habit was the best idea ever.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Day 55

It has been a few days since I blogged, but that is because I have been chugging along and flopping in bed exhausted each night. I am very happy to say that I have begun editing People of the Sea again. Last night I had to get back out of bed to jot down the changes I planned for today!

You know what is weird? I would have never thought that this would work for me, but I have planned a week or two in advance what project I am going to work in each day. I have never had so many projects - and types of projects!  - going at once. It was too easy to put off editing by working on other things, and I'd accidentally let weeks slip by without beta reading. One thing that has made my writing calendar possible is that I understand more than I used to about my writing needs, like how long I can work on one thing before I need to switch gears and let that project recharge.

I gotta say, though, that not having the regular old internet can be a pain in my rear for certain projects. Submitting stories? Yeah right! Fewer distractions is great until I want to do something like that and then it will take twice as long or not work at all. Eh. I want to figure out how to make it to the library more often,  sans kids.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Writing Lesson Plans

I should be writing my review for Reaper by K.D. McEntire, because the book is awesome, but instead I have been writing lesson plans.

I know, I know. Originally I had hoped to focus solely on fiction and reviews and only count those two things as writing time. But I start teaching at the homeschool Coop on Monday! And I'm teaching Drama! I am so excited!

And it is writing, darn it all. It should count. I have a hard time not counting writing of any variety (and beta reading...) as part of my writing marathon. So, there you have. I cheated. I guess?

Tomorrow, the review! Promise. Otherwise K. D. McEntire can claim a free babysitting token.  ;)  She has sequels to write, after all!

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

"Finished"

I slogged through that last scene tonight just to say that I did. Hey, at least editing will feel like less of an ego blow,  right? Bleh. Kids waking up too early! Proof: I sent the wrong copy of a file to a writer, and momentarily thought that I had lost all my work commenting etc.! Nope, just saved it in the wrong folder, is all. Ah, well. At least I'll have something to work with when I get back to the story.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Day 45: Almost there!

I've only got a few hundred words left in this last scene, but I'm stopping early because I'm a bit under the weather and need the extra sleep to take care of the kids tomorrow. Tomorrow night: a complete rough draft! And maybe a once over to check for consistency before I table this and get back to writing reviews.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Day 43: (re)structuring a short story

So, about that 5000 words. I erased all but 1500 of it for a restructuring that should reign in the word count. I'm not the queen of math, but I'm back up to 2800 words and diving into the climax. I don't consider the trashed bits a total waste, either. That is the down side to discovery writing. At least I worked out a lot about the characters and their previous relationships.

In this rewrite, we don't leave important characters behind in the beginning. That solves the problem of how to get them back in for the rescue at the end. It also means that the MC spends less time interacting with lower tier characters who, while important to him, have little direct power over the outcome of the story. Sucks to be a human in an urban fantasy,  eh?

Hopefully my biggest challenge now will be balancing back story with all this life threatening action ;)