July Writing Update / August Goals

July Writing Accomplished:

* Forgotten Star: New Chapters - 1
* Forgotten Star: Edit Chapters - 1
* The Dragon's Bard: Short Story Edited
* The Lonely Orchard: Short Story Edited
* Winter Warrior Worldbuilding - casual
* Critiques - 1

Not too bad considering one week I was off on vacation and I had computer problems the following week.

August Goals:
* Forgotten Star: Edit 4 Chapters
* Critiques: 8
* Winter Warrior: Worldbuilding in four phases:
--characters
--races & culture
--maps & drawings
--outline
The intent here is to be ready to start the first draft by the end of August

7/27 - 7/28 No Progress

Life took over for a few days, took a break. Unfortunately, I didn't accomplish any of my goals for the week but lots of fun was had. [1 birthday, 1 anniversary, 1 new neice]

7/26 Progress

MS Word file has been fixed, thanks to some help. (waves at Zette). Reworked some formatting in chapters one and two, and adjusted headers. Started on Mar's crit of "Innocents". One more night should do it.

7/25 Progress

Forgotten Star: realized chapter 2 was off, because I started it at the end of an argument between Korin and his father. I'm going to add the argument, I think that'll show their issues better than Korin's running off and sulking (even though he's right).

MS Word: still stinky. Managed to convert the unstable document to a .txt, and then break it up into three .doc files. Now I've got to reformat 560 pages of text, including line breaks and indentations that were lost in the original document. At least the haunted page breaks disappeared.

Whispers (the collaboration/for fun project): added to a scene my partner wrote. Wanted to work on the next scene, but I had to resolve the Word issues.

7/24 Progress

Worked on the web page a bit, getting closer to my desired content.

Analyzing Chapter 2 of FS, something is missing, but I don't yet know what. I'm introducing Korin and his story question, but it doesn't feel like a complete scene. I need something more compelling? We'll see. I'll reread it one more time tonight and see what hits me.

7/23 Progress

Started the crit, with markups in the text.

Read Forgotten Star Ch 2, and started marking up where changes need to be made.

Dealing with some technical issues with MS Word, too... Stinky.

7/22 Progress & Vacation

Vacation: read some short stories, and came up with a few ideas for Winter Warrior.

7/22: Reviewed my July writing goals and came up with a plan for this week. Selected a story to crit.

7/14 - 7/21 Absence

Vacation prep, and departure for sunnier climes will leave me out of contact, and off writing during this time. I'm taking along some small projects to work on, should the desire hit me, but it's supposed to be a vacation, so no pressure.

7/13 Progress

Forgotten Star: reviewed the layout of the next 3 chapters and rearanged a few things. Made some edit notes as well. I'm taking the chapters up to bed with me for redlining edits. The rest of my energies were spent on trip preperation.

7/12 Progress

Whispers (fun project, not on goals list): opening written, shared with partner.

Forgotten Star: (1) Chapter 1 Scene 2 edited at 888 words. (2) Revamped chapter organization; scene 3 has been moved to the start of chapter 3, therefore (3) Chapter 1 edit is complete (and posted to SG for crit).

7/11 Progress

Forgotten Star -- Chapter 1, Scene 1: 1213 words edited (7 pages). Scene complete. Venian is more frightening now. [1/3 scenes]

7/10 Progress

The Lonely Orchard received another quick eidt/skim over lunch, and I fixed a few things that were nagging me overnight. It's in the crit queue now.

7/09 Progress

I focued on The Lonely Orchard tonight, and finished the first pass edit, and I have to say it was a thorough edit. If I missed anything, I should be able to catch it with a casual readover tomorrow.

Neglected Forgotten Star to get the short done, but now I'll be able to focus on FS entirely tomorrow.

7/08 Progress

I am planning on using this blog to mark my daily progress. Part of the reasoning is to keep myself on track. I promised myself I would not take a full year to get through an edit, as the previous versions required. I won't have the luxury in the future, and I shouldn't take it now. My goal is 6 - 9 months, so that'll put me December - March for finishing this. I also need to maintain my other writing projects while keeping up with this novel edit, so I need to remind myself of those items as well. Here goes.

Today's Progress:

The Lonely Orchard: 2 pages edited, which includes a stronger opening scene. (2/12 pages)

Forgotten Star: Chapter 1 (the recently written chapter "A") red-lined for edit prep. Consists of three scenes to be edited electronically this week.

Update 7/8

Not too much done these past few days. I accomplished my goals for the week early, and I think my brain took a break. I picked up a book I read some time ago and skimmed over it again, as I tend to do with writing books. "Handbook of Short Story Writing, Volume II", and sure enough, some concepts hit home. Two specific stories were in mind when I read this, and I confirmed for myself that I need to add the extra scene to the start of Dragon's Bard, and just how I needed to fix the opening to The Lonely Orchard.

Edit prep and planning for the novel has gone as far as it can without turning into procrastination: the Forgotten Star edit begins today.

Update 7/5

The week is flying by, and I need to put the brakes on. I completed another crit, and I've got two more in queue now so that should hold me for a bit. I worked out (I think) the magic naming issues in Forgotten Star, and I started an edit of The Lonely Orchard (more of a review/analysis). I should hit the full edit tomorrow.

The Dragon's Bard

Reviewed yesterday, edited today. It took about three hours once I got into it, but I didn't go nuts with line by lines unless something really didn't feel right. I'm still very close to the story, and toyed with several possible changes (surrounding a support character) and ended up adding a scene at the beginning to sort things out. (That's becoming a common occurance for me, maybe something I need to think on when writing my first drafts).

This one will be out to the crit group shortly, can't wait for feedback!

A Few Words Tonight

I worked on Dragon's Bard over lunch (which really should be "Dragons' Bard' now), and worked out what needs to change in the edit.

This evening I added 2,067 words to Forgotten Star and completed chapter D. I'm ready to edit!