The first draft of Daemon is done.
I actually finished yesterday. It came in at just under 80k, which is short, but it needs a lot more padding on rewrites.
I had the day off today. I had planned on working on some shorts, but the brain had other ideas. Not sure if I’ll take tomorrow off or not.\
The plan is to let Daemon rest for at least a month or two while I work on other stuff. I have a backlog of shorts to work on and I need to get my butt into gear with Shaede submissions.
Despite what my progress bar says, I am almost near the end of Daemon.
The progress bar bases it on a 100k MS, but this first draft is going to be shorter, somewhere around the vicinity of 80k.
It’s a mess. It’s a first draft, it’s supposed to be. Once I’m done with it, it’s going firmly in the metaphorical drawer to rest for at least a month or two.
I plan on spending some time on short stories. I have a couple I want to polish for submission and I haven’t had the energy or inclination after novel work to even glance at them. I also have a couple of anthologies that I’d like to try to work something up for. Not to mention all those agent queries to put together.
Progress for this week on Daemon: 5,191
Yep, only about half of my usual output. Long weekend and a resurgence of depression made things difficult this week. I took Friday off as well, since my thinking was so scattered.
I did make a start on a couple of other small projects, which is something at least – just over 1,000 words on them.
Words for the week on Daemon: 10, 075.
Difficult week all around for writing. I don’t think I had one day when I actually looked forward to that writing time. Every day it was an act of will just to get my butt into the chair with the laptop and get the words down.
It’s funny, because I actually had an epiphany about one of the main plot points behind this book and yet I’ve had no enthusiasm about actually writing it into the manuscript. Blame it on the fact that I’m heading into the middle of the book. Blame it on health taking another downturn. Blame it on the ever-present insomnia.
Hopefully this week is going to be easier.
Words for the week: 10,364
Writing was the same pattern as previous full weeks – I managed to write extra words from Monday to Thursday, which allowed me to have a slack day on Friday. It feels weird, still, since I’m so used to pushing myself to the limit (Hey, I can do 10k a week? Let’s try 20k!) but I have to do this. I need to pace myself.
One of the themes of late in the writing blogosphere has been how quickly people write. I see people who write 1,000 words in eight hours of work, people who write ten times that in less time.
Me? On a good day, I can get 2k done in an hour. We’re talking first draft here – I just sit down and let it all flow. I had a couple of days like that this week, where it all came easily. The rest were difficult. Pulling teeth. I hate those days.
It’s easy for me to get caught up in jealousy about what other writer accomplish in their time. And I have to keep on reminding myself that once upon a time, I could do that as well. I could write 2-3k after working a full day and not break a sweat. Nowadays, my body has other ideas, of course. Damn lupus.
This week was a bit of a write-off (ha ha) for me.
Total words for the week: 4,725.
There would have been 2k more, but for the fact that my laptop decided to eat an entire day of work. Sigh. One other day was lost to medical appointments and another to a public holiday. I’d been feeling so badly healthwise of late that I decided a long weekend could only do some good.
Still, it’s another chapter done. And for a first draft, it’s pretty good.
I’m on new meds now, which should hopefully help things along. Amongst other things (mainly keeping my rampant misdirected immune system in check), they do tend to help my concentration.
This has been a difficult week. My health has been worsening again, and as such, writing has been a struggle.
I’ve decided to change how I do things, as I think the way I’ve been pushing myself is placing far too much pressure on me. So, for the rest of this novel draft, I’m going to aim for 10k words a week. If I get them all done in several amazing day’s work, I get to have days off.
This week:
Monday – 2,584
Tuesday – 2,477
Wednesday – 2,024
Thursday – 2,029
Friday – 1,062
Total for the week – 10, 156
It was really refreshing to be able to stop after a thousand words today and be able to do other things. I’ve been spending all of my energy on writing on bad days, and I have nothing left for other things that I’ve been wanting to do. The whole thing has been getting me down a lot. This way should work better and give me leeway for doing other things.
Words on Daemon: 2,584
I’ve committed a writing sin. Yes, I was about 50k into a draft of Daemon. And yes, I’ve scrapped the lot of it and begun again. I was just feeling around in the dark previously, but now I have a firm plan of what’s going to happen.
Different starting point that meshes better with Shaede as well as the delay of certain plotlines until later in the book (or alternatively, the third book).
For the first day back generating words, it went remarkably well. The writing groove was easy to find and easy to stay in. May all writing days on this draft be as easy.
New words: 2,082
Total words: 47,025
Seriously hampered by migraine. I suspect when I go back and read this section it will make absolutely no sense.
New words: 2,373
Total words: 44,943
Assuming this one is going to be around 100k, I’m approaching the halfway mark. And oh, the angst.
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