Friday, November 05, 2004

6,956 / 50,000

That's the word count on my novel so far. A little behind schedule, but I've decided I'm mostly going to focus on word count milestones at the end of each weekend. That way I can use the extra weekend time to make up whatever writing I didn't manage during the week. So I've got about 5,000 words planned for the next couple of days.

So far, all this writing has been surprisingly fun. It's a little worrisome during the day when I'm not actually writing, because I don't really know what I'm going to do next. But once I get home and start typing, things start happening. Pretty neat. I just hope it keeps up, though. 'Cause I'm gonna need it.

The thing I find myself wondering about the most right now is pacing. I've never written anything remotely this big, so it's hard to tell whether I'm dragging stuff out too much or whether I'm going to run out of material before I get something that's actually novel-length. I know I started out kind of slower than I meant to -- I wasn't feeling very dramatic on November 1st, so I mostly just did a lot of background info. I think it's been picking up since then. I'll probably have to just reread the whole thing in December though. I'm too much in the middle of it right now to tell.

As for the physical act of writing itself, I've found an interesting way to get myself to be more productive. Sitting at a desk to type something like this just doesn't work for me at all. It's too easy to stand up and pace the room, which makes it hard to type and leads to distractions. Plus, my desk here at home isn't terribly ergonomic. But I've got a laptop! This is wonderful. I can just unplug it from anything and make myself cozy on the futon, sitting up with pillows and blankets and a cup of tea, and then type right on my lap. It's more comfortable for my body and it puts my hands in a better position. Being underneath my computer makes me less inclined to get up without a pressing reason. And only having a trackpad mouse (which I don't care for much) means I'm less likely to waste time checking email or surfing the web. It's easier to just type. So that's all pretty good.

Anyway, I'm heading off to Friday Night Waltz pretty soon, having managed to squeeze out another thousand words since I got home from work. Then it will be a weekend of typing.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

are you going to try and get it published somewhere?
-gc

Tandava said...

I very much doubt it. Most likely, by the end of the month I'll never want to see it again. It's one of those journey rather than destination things. But who knows? Never say never.

Anonymous said...

Wow! You know, you're the second random person online this week that has really interested me. I mean, how many people are interested in throat singing, like banjo, and describe themselves as bibliophiles? I guess I've just been lucky.

I just got a livejournal if you're as interested in random internet people as I am: http://www.livejournal.com/users/kopiikat/

I had a question though: The audio clip you have... Did you write that? It happens to be my birthday. It's very pretty.