Stephanie Gunn

Project: White Raven draft two

New words: 2,767

Total words: 105,245

Goal: 100k

Writing:

And then it was the end of the draft.

Decent writing day overall.  I’m still not 100% happy with the last part of the last chapter and may well tinker with it a bit more over the next few days before sending out the last chapters to betas.

There’s definitely still a lot of work to be done on this manuscript – enough to justify another full draft, I think.  I was going to send this full draft out to a few more beta readers, but I may hold off on that until I’ve been able to fix a few things at least.

Amusingly, I woke up this morning with another novel in my head.  Not even Never, which I’ve been planning as the next novel to work on.  This is an old idea and one that I thought had sunk down somewhere below the murk in my mind.  But this morning I woke up with one of the protagonist’s voices in my head.  Maybe, energy permitting, I’ll work on it a little for Nano.  Maybe.

Real life:

Not much apart from pootling around the house getting a few bits and pieces done.  I’m finding it near impossible to get through the day right now without having to spend a decent amount of time lying down.  Which is annoying, since I pretty much can’t do anything while lying down but watch some TV or listen to podcasts and the like.  Even more annoying, I had to lie down this morning after having a shower and breakfast.  But I managed to get some work done afterwards, so I guess it’s time well spent.  It’s still frustrating, though.

It’s been crazy windy all day, along with some decent spurts of rain this morning.  Not really weather to invite me to go out for a walk, but I’ll probably head out in a little bit anyway.

Project: White Raven draft two

New words: 1,104

Total words: 104,279

Goal: 100k

Writing:

Not the best day today, hence the low word count.  I was just very tired and lacking in concentration – to the point where my usual first writing session was completely useless.  Managed to get 1k done on my second session, which is better than nothing.

This is making me rethink my tentative maybe-Nano plans.  On a good day, I’m fine reaching the Nano word count, but I can’t guarantee good days right now.  I guess I’ll just take it as it comes.

Real life:

Ran a couple of errands this morning.  Will go for a walk if I can, but am currently stuck waiting for someone to return a phone call.  I know that as soon as I leave the house, they’ll call back.  Frustrating.

Project: White Raven draft two

New words: 1,705

Total words: 103,772

Goal: 100k

Writing:

This week’s goal is to get the final chapter of this draft sorted out.  I sketched it out on Friday, and now I have to flesh it out a little, so it’s not completely painful for my beta readers.  As such, I’m not trying for mad word counts every day – I’ll be happy to get 1k, rather than aiming for at least 2k.  Which is a convoluted way of explaining why my word count is below 2k.

Anyway.  This draft of The White Raven will be done this week, and the last chapters sent to beta readers (and the full thing sent to a few betas who haven’t seen it before).  I have more work to do on the manuscript for sure – there’s a handful of plot threads that I need to foreshadow properly and I’ll need to work on cutting the length a little.  That’ll wait for next year, though.

I’m finding myself tempted to do Nanowrimo, too.  It’s an utterly crazy idea – the baby is due on December 5th, so assuming that he comes when he’s supposed to, I’ll be writing almost up to my due date.  But it feels almost as crazy to be planning on doing nothing for a month.  I don’t cope well with doing nothing, unless I’m sick enough to not have a choice in it.  Technically, I could work on a really rough draft (or half of a draft) of Never in the next month.  But then I’d have to abandon it halfway through, likely to not be so much as thinking about it for a few months at the very least.  Argh, decisions.

I know that the sensible thing is to step back from the writing for the next month and let myself rest (as well as catch up on awards reading and some review reading and writing).  I have a tonne of little things that need to be done around the house still as well as lots of recreational books waiting to be read.  But I find it very hard to actually plan not to work.  I didn’t think I’d find it so hard, to be honest.

Real life:

Yet more laundry!  (Sorry, Chris!).  It’s raining a bit today off and on, so I had to pull out all my indoor drying racks to hang it all, which I didn’t appreciate.  I was hoping that the sunny weather was here to stay.  Though it was warm and sticky enough yesterday to make me utterly exhausted, so I should technically be happy that it’s cooler today.

The house has also been cleaned, as per usual for a Monday.   My life is glamourous, really.

Project: White Raven draft two

New words: 2,596

Total words: 103,305

Goal: 100k

Writing:

And that brings me to the end of this draft.

Technically, I need to fiddle with the last few scenes before I’ll send them out to betas, since they’re really rough right now, but I have the basic shape there.  I suspect that the ending is going to need a decent amount of work in the next draft, but for this one, it’s done.

Which means that I can actually take things easy next week and do a lower word count per day if I want to.

It’s going to be really weird when I send out these last few chapters to my betas and can forget about this draft for a while.  Hell, I can stop writing for a little while, which is going to be even weirder.  But after next week, life will get hectic with medical appointments, house repairs and holy crap baby, so I probably won’t even miss it.

Real life:

Yet more laundry.  Just getting used to having to do ten tonnes of it a week I think   Seriously, I’ve been washing lots of new stuff that we’ve been gifted.  Very glad that we have a good quality washing machine right now.  And that it’s warm and sunny and I’ve been able to get everything dry.

Spent more time researching replacement laptops and I’m still undecided.  At the moment I’m torn between going for another Dell (a Vostro, probably), a Lenovo Thinkpad or doing the old switcheroo to a MacBook Pro.  I will admit that Scrivener is the major drawcard for me switching to a Mac, as is the supposed lengthened battery life.  But the price kind of sucks (then again, so does the Thinkpad).  I’ve been very lucky with my current Dell, which has served faithfully up until recently.  Mreh, I don’t know.  One of these days I’ll stop blathering on about it and make a decision.

Project: White Raven draft two

New words: 2,802

Total words: 101,170

Goal: 100k

Writing:

Not a bad day again.  Spent most of my words reworking scenes from yesterday, since they were only drafted out, before moving onto new scenes.  I am so close to the end of this draft that I can taste it.

Real life:

Grcoery shopping this morning, and yet more laundry.  I also went for a walk already this morning, so I find myself with some extra time this afternoon.  Time in which I should do something useful, but will probably just spend more time trying to decide how to rectify my dying laptop situation.  Currently I’m torn between switching to a Macbook or just going for another Dell.  Cannot make up my mind.  Argh.

Project: White Raven draft two

New words: 3,949

Total words: 101,342

Goal: 100k

Writing:

Making up for a lost day and a useless day, it seems.

I got a whole chapter sorted out today.  While it’s going to need some work still, I’m pretty happy with it overall.  And I’m looking at maybe one or two more chapters to go until the end of this draft, putting me well within my goal time (hopefully) of getting this done within the next few weeks.

I wish I could tell when I sat down to write what kind of a writing day it would be.  Today I found myself putting off actually getting the butt in the chair, but once I was here, everything just flowed.  Other days I start off enthusiastic, and then nothing happens.  I hate the unpredictability of it all.

Real life:

More laundry, just for something different   Washing a tonne of baby stuff.

Not much else productive today, thanks to feeling generally pretty tired on a physical level.  Will go for a short and very slow walk soon and then settle down to some reading, I think.

Project: White Raven draft two

New words: 2,302

Total words: 98,596

Goal: 100k

Writing:

Getting there slowly.  My concentration wasn’t so great again today, so I spent much of my writing time just sketching out scenes.  It’s frustrating not being able to get into good writing, but it’s better than nothing.  I’m just hoping that I can get a couple of good writing days in over the next few weeks so I can finish this draft.

Real life:

Ran some errands this morning, did laundry.  Tried desperately to stay awake – did a lot of running around yesterday (hence no writing) and I’m feeling it today.

Will go for a walk soon and then settle down for some reading, I think.

Project: White Raven draft two

New words: 2,628

Total words: 97,554

Goal: 100k

Writing:

Not a lot of actual forward motion again today.  Mostly because I spent some time reworking a few scenes.  I have a clear idea of where I’m going with the next few right now, and on another day I might push on and try to get them worked out.  Today I’m teetering on the edge of exhaustion, and I’m forced to give it up for the day.

The men in the basement are earning their keep right now.  I’m able to tie together a few things fairly neatly and I know how everything is going to turn out.  I just need to get there.  And seriously, I miss having energy right now.  It’s taking me forever to do everything.

Real life:

It feels like summer today – so far, the temperature has hit 31C.  And I’m really feeling it – I’m running warm at the moment anyway, and of course I haven’t adjusted to warmer weather yet.  Tomorrow is supposed to be warm as well, and then it’ll be a little cooler again.

I have accomplished laundry, but not much else yet today apart from putting together a review.  Will go for a very sedate walk in a bit, though I really don’t feel like it.  I didn’t sleep well last night, so I’m hoping that I’ll get better sleep tonight.  Thankfully we don’t have a busy weekend this weekend (apart from my baby shower on Sunday) so I should be able to get some decent rest in and be back in the word mines next week.

Project: White Raven draft two

New words: 2,133

Total words: 97,275

Goal: 100k

Writing:

A patchwork day.  Had one good writing session where I rewrote a scene that I sketched out yesterday.  Had lunch, and came back to discover that my brain didn’t want to work any more.  I blame tiredness from getting up earlier than normal this morning.

I did manage to sketch out the start of the next chapter, and will come back to work on that tomorrow.  Creeping ever closer to the end of the book.  It would be really nice if I could get this finished next week.  We’ll see how if my brain and body decide to comply with that or not.

Real life:

Will go for a walk very soon, and then try to tackle the slush reading that I didn’t get to yesterday.  I should be working on a review as well, and have made notes, but I think the actual writing of which will wait until tomorrow.

In other news, its actually warm today.  I am glorying in the few days of real spring-like weather we get before summer begins to smother the city.

Project: White Raven draft two

New words: 2,238

Total words: 97,190

Goal: 100k

Writing:

Not a bad day.  I was even following my outline until my protagonist decided that she wanted to do something completely different.  Something that’s left me scratching my head a bit about what’s going to happen next, hence finishing up the writing for the day.  Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll have worked it out somehow.

It looks like this draft may end up being a little longer than 100k.  Which is okay, I guess, though not ideal in terms of submitting.  I don’t think it’ll be much longer, though, and it can always be edited down at a later stage if needed.

Real life:

Grcocery shopping accomplished this morning, which breaks my normal routine.  An electrician is coming tomorrow morning, which means that I can’t do it then.  But we have food now, which is good, and I don’t need to worry about running around at all.  I do need to get up early, though, which sucks a bit.  But is much easier to do now that the days are getting longer.

Another day where I’ve finished up writing somewhat early, so I’ll do some organising around the house and then get into the usual routine of walking and review reading.