A slow day

The end of January has been a bit difficult for me, emotionally – good things have been happening but there’s also been a lot of stress.

That said, I have got a little bit of writing done today on Prince Richard’s Choice. I also spent an embarrassing and frustrating amount of time researching which university I wanted some characters to meet at, and which courses they would be studying. It was hard enough picking a uni for me!

Total written today: 246 words.
January total so far: 20017 words.
2016 total so far: 20017 words.

Talk to you soon!

A day off

Today I played about with a character creator a bit, then wrote 27 words of Prince Richard’s Choice and called it a night. I just need to recharge a bit.

Since I’ve been doing a fair bit of editing this month (and will be doing more over the coming days, I expect) I’m happy to reduce January’s target somewhat. I’ll be happy with 20k, though I’d like to manage a few more than that!

Total written today: 27 words.
January total so far: 19771 words.
2016 total so far: 19771 words.

Talk to you tomorrow!

Advancing on all fronts

Today I dabbled with a lot of different projects. It’s been that kind of day.

First, I finished what I’m going to call my “lightning pass” edit on BH1. The basic idea was to whizz through it and make some of the bigger changes now, even just in rough form, before the editing started to get more and more scary as I overthought it. The next stage will be leaving it for a bit, then going through it again like a normal edit pass to neaten it up and shine up the rough patch.

I also reached what might be the end of my story for A Certain Persuasion, although I’m not quite happy with the ending yet. That took me about 500 words.

And finally, I added another scene to Prince Richard’s Choice, and I’m hoping to spend a bit more time on that for a while to let the ACP piece sit. As predicted, the characters are now all but unrecognisable from The Perfect Garden, but I like these sort-of new people.

Total written today: 1233 words.
January total so far: 19744 words.
2016 total so far: 19744 words.

Talk to you tomorrow!

Slower progress

I didn’t get as much done today as yesterday – I had a bit of washing up to do and it took longer than anticipated – but I did get something done. Again, I’ve been editing the first Bowler Hat novel (and you know what, with most of the changes suggested, things are falling into place a lot better than they did the first time around) – but before I got going on that I made sure to write 500 words or so of A Certain Persuasion. The plan was to stop editing a little early and do another 500, but I got caught up in the Bowler Hat madness, so it didn’t happen.

Word count is one thing, but editing the novel seems just as important right now. It’s less quantifiable, but just as satisfying to get done. I ran through nearly three chapters tonight, which won’t change the world but has substantially improved the story (I hope!) – so if I come in a little under par in terms of word count this month, well, I won’t be crying about it.

Total written today: 575 words.

January total so far: 18511 words.

2016 total so far: 18511 words.

Talk to you tomorrow!

A lot of editing…

Today I did a first (post-submission) edit pass through around half of the first Bowler Hat novel. That seems to be going pretty well, I think – we’ll see if it gets more muddly towards the end.

I also managed to write some more of A Certain Persuasion – I think the first draft of that is nearly finished. It’s been a good day, though I didn’t count my words while editing so my official total is quite low.

Total written today: 340 words.
January total so far: 17936 words.
2016 total so far: 17936 words.

Talk to you tomorrow!

A wordless weekend

Between going to a gig (The Corrs, who were fantastic) and catching up with my niece (now smiling and mimicking silly facial expressions), I didn’t actually get any writing done over the weekend. I know, I know – I hang my head in shame.

On the other hand, tonight I got a chance to look through the notes I got back on Bowler Hats 1 yesterday, and while there’s a lot to work on – which is a bit daunting – it’s immensely flattering that the publishers have taken so much time and trouble to help me improve. There’s lots of encouragement there, too, so I feel very happy about it overall.

Talk to you tomorrow!

Some progress…

Today I split my efforts between Prince Richard’s Choice and A Certain Persuasion, and I got a fair bit done.

Total written today: 1033 words.
January total so far: 17596 words.
2016 total so far: 17596 words.

Out tomorrow night so I don’t know how much I’ll get done or whether that will include a blog post, so…

Talk to you soon!

A change

They say a change is as good as a rest, and I tried that out today. Often when I’ve had a bad day in my non-writing life (I swear I have one), I find it hard to continue the project I’ve been working on until I’ve done something different for a bit.

Well, this has been a bit of a bad week, and though A Certain Persuasion has kept going pretty well through a few bad days, I could feel myself hitting the block with it yesterday and today. So tonight, quite late, I decided to start on a different project I was thinking about earlier today.

You may remember The Perfect Garden, a series I wrote the first book and a bit of about a year ago. I plan to revisit it at some point – it needs rewriting completely, I think – but I’m not sure if I’ll end up doing anything with it. It did become clear, however, as I started writing book two, that a couple of secondary characters had taken on a life of their own. And, having been a fanfiction writer for many years, it didn’t take me long to find an alternate universe that suited their story better. They’ll probably end up completely different to how they are in TPG, but I want to explore their story with the focus on them, this time.

My working title for this is Prince Richard’s Choice, though it may well become A King’s Ransom in due course. I wrote just over 700 words today, and I’ll probably switch between it and A Certain Persuasion for a bit as the mood takes me, until the latter is finished.

Total written today: 716 words.
January total so far: 16563 words.
2016 total so far: 16563 words.

Talk to you tomorrow!

Not today…

I have had a very, very irritating day – the latest in a series of similarly trying ones – and have therefore given myself the night off writing. It would only end up sounding angry anyway, and I’ll make up for it at some point, I’m sure.

I did, however, write 14 words of A Certain Persuasion to finish a sentence after midnight, so it’s not been a total loss, I suppose.

Total written today: 14 words.

January total so far: 15847 words.

2016 total so far: 15847 words.

Talk to you tomorrow!

A very busy day…

Today has been busy, but productive. I conquered my fear of dentists by going to see a genuinely nice one (my old dentist was horrible), and then got to talk to my counsellor about how much I’m not scared of dentists any more and how nice my dentist is… among other things, of course. I will need to go back at some point soon for some work to be done, however, so we’ll see if this lack of fear lasts.

I got a fair bit of A Certain Persuasion done today, mostly before going to bed this morning! Not quite the total I wanted but I knew I wouldn’t get much done with everything else going on, so that’s OK.

Oh, and in other news – the publisher I sent BH1 to didn’t totally hate it (yay!) but don’t think it’s quite ready to be published yet (which admittedly I wasn’t expecting it to be, nobody’s perfect, least of all me) and will be sending some notes for me on it (yay!), so expect, potentially some extensive rewrites in the future…

Total written today: 844 words.

January total so far: 15833 words.

2016 total so far: 15833 words.

Talk to you tomorrow!