On the one hand, I only managed two writing sessions this past week: one I wrote only 626 words, then the second was a last-ditch effort to make up my word count, but even that ended with only 1592 words. Within the middle third of the Writers’ Huddle Summer Challenge, I was aiming for five writing sessions at 700 words each, at least. That means I should be writing about 3500 words per week. I managed 2218. This far into the challenge I should have written 12,000 words overall. I have managed 9035 - excluding what I write for this blog - over the course of four weeks. That means I'm 2965 words behind where I feel I should be.
Yesterday started the final third of the challenge; the point where I wanted to be able to write 1000 words per session; five times a week. Anyone want to guess how many words have been written thus far? Give yourself a gold star if you picked zero!
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So, yeah, I didn't get as much writing as I would have liked, but I did accomplish this:
I mean, I accomplished a LOT this past week. It just wasn't really in the writing department.
Still, as I keep saying, considering the limited time I had this week, I'm still increasingly impressed at the amount of writing I did do. Especially since I also had a party to attend right after work on Saturday, and Friday, when I meant to catch up on writing, I ended up passing out on the couch instead.
Ya know what? Give me that gold star after all! I could have dropped writing completely this week, and instead I put in the effort of writing at least SOMETHING.
OK, that may have been a bit much, but... eh.... encourage good behavior, I guess.
My short-blip of a writing session I managed on Friday before I passed out isn't really much to read, but it's writing practice. It's not supposed to be my magnum opus. It's mostly stream-of-consciousness and inspired by the agonizingly boring Thursday evening I had, followed by an equally mind-numbing Friday; probably why I passed out in the first place.
So, if you want a quick read about my thoughts on days seeming unbearably long, you can check it out below.
"Time Must Be A Toddler"
As for my last-ditch writing session? Well, it was Sunday, I needed to check in with Writers' Huddle, and I didn't even have 700 words under my belt. I needed to try to get something else down on paper.
I had finished the Devon/Trish story aside from editing. Granted, once I get the fight scene figured out I'll probably add words there, but at the stage I currently am I know I'd be subtracting words; not adding them. Plus, Mouse is in a writing flow and didn't want to disrupt it by stopping to edit her July project. I can't fault her that. So we pushed back our writing exchange. Helps me too, because I can now focus the last two weeks on prepping for Quarthix's wedding as well as going full-throttle on this writing challenge. This does mean, though, that I'll have to back down from my original promise to have the edited Devon/Trish story up by the end of the month. Unrealistic thoughts, that.
However, I'm not doing another writing challenge next month. So, by the end of SEPTEMBER I will have it up. Poke me relentlessly if I delay again.
Anyway, my point is that I didn't have any more writing to add to the Devon/Trish story right now. I'm still largely inspired to work on my fan-novelization of Varekai, but I want to save it for my NaNo this year, and I already "cheated" a bit by writing one of the chapters. I have to resist writing more before November. I need to spend my time writing notes on what I want the narrative to be. THAT is what I can do before November, but no more chapter attempts. No "cheating."
So that's two projects I'm interested in, but I'm trying to avoid right now. The next big project I want to try to work on is the "Hey, Arnold!" fan-script for "The Jungle Movie" before the actual one premiers on Nickelodeon in November. The problem there is that I don't really remember what ChibiSunnie and I have thus far, which means I have to take the time to read through it first. I didn't have time to do that and still get my writing in. What other writing project could I work on?
With the excitement of TJM, I've actually been feeling What Is Truly Meant To Be again. The problem there is that it's been so long since I've touched that story that I would desperately need my notes to remember where I was headed next, and they're buried somewhere under all the other notes I've made for more recent stories.
Perhaps I could finally get to my Miraculous fanfic. Problem with THAT, though, is that it's been a few weeks since I last saw the show, which means not having the characters predominantly in my head anymore. It also means that all of the "reveal moments" I thought up while watching the show are overpowered by all the "reveal moments" I've seen in fancomics or read in fanfiction. A lot of them are really good, and I kind of want to incorporate a lot of elements from each of them. However, there's a lot of elements that I also wasn't the biggest fan of; giving me the challenge of "I can do better."
Being so determined to get it "juuuuust right" means planning. Planning means time. I didn't have that. I spent an hour trying to get it mapped out in my head, and it ended up with me wasting my writing time doing anything but writing.
No. It was about 10pm on Sunday, I only had 600-some words for the week, and I didn't have time to search for notes or reread anything or rewatch any shows or plot anything out. I needed to write. Now!
I went back to "A Writer's Book of Days." I'd write three writing prompts if I needed to! Except I wasn't inspired. I already struggled for a day to work on "The Longest Day" which is why I missed writing anything after work on Thursday. I saw the next prompt was "Write about a shade tree" and nothing came to me. Nothing. No inspiration in the slightest. I didn't have time for this! I needed to write!
I racked my brain. I needed my Muse to talk to me, and quickly. There must be SOME story I wanted to tell that didn't need prep-work. There must be SOME tale that I didn't need to wait on. There must be SOME inspiration waiting for me to find it.
And there was.
Jolene! Glorious, beautiful, broken Jolene! I haven't touched her story since, what, January? Mostly because I couldn't handle the heartache of writing more of her story. But now was the time. I needed her. I had her story planned out. I knew what needed to be written for the next chapter. I had her in my head a lot lately due to some of the music I've been listening to the past few weeks. I missed her. Now was the time.
And I wrote.
I wrote nearly 1600 words before Hubby knocked on our bedroom door. It was midnight, and we should be going to bed. Mildly defeated that I only wrote about a third of the words I wanted to this past week, I submitted and put the laptop away.
Still, I'm back on track with Jolene. The next time I need to write and inspiration alludes me I will again turn to her. In fact, until I can think of something worth writing about a "shade tree," Jolene will probably be my focus for the last two weeks of this challenge.
Slowly but surely, I will have all my WIPs completed.
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