August 2015 Motivational Thread

RedMage said:
Kick in the pants! I need a kick in the pants over here, STAT!

We're a week into August and I haven't written a thing. I've received 1 critique and I'm waiting (patiently, I assure you) for 2 more of my Halloween story. JD and I are preparing to go back to work on the Pirate book but we have a few days left to go before we really dive in again. It's the weekend, I'm not working the next two days and I would really like to write!

For my wips I have the novella challenge I entered and a cool story for it. Then there is my Jack Frost story. One of those should probably be worked on...
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I feel you, man! I have not been myself for much of the past month, and I've not been keeping to the schedule I should be on. It's something we just have to push through if we want to reach our goals.

So get on it!
 
I've written 100 words tonight, though that is generous, especially seeing as I wrote most of them last Friday by hand and only recorded about a third of Friday's words into the computer tonight. Actually, I don't even think it was 100. Probably less.

I can feel it building, however. A wave of creativity and desire to write. I'm able to catch about half the waves that I see, and use them to propel my little raft quite a bit further than I am usually able to travel on the Writer's Sea. The other half, I either try to direct where the wave sends me or am not ready for it when it arrives. I'll give this one a few days, til Thursday or Friday, I think. I'll keep picking at my writing and, hopefully, I'll be ready when the wave hits.
 
Quick update, as I'm taking a quick break.

The future war short story is finally coming into shape. I'm at almost 7k words, and I have plenty of room to add to it if necessary. I expect I have another full night of writing, and that will leave Thursday as my stressful editing day - the deadline for submission is, of course, Thursday at midnight.

I have been pleasantly surprised at the ideas that popped into my head for this. We'll see how it turns out. Part of me is afraid that I may have gone too far, but I guess that's sorta the point.

And as usual, I'm already dreaming up more stories, bigger stories, within this universe.
 
Had the new hamster for a week. He survived the 250km trip from the pet store, but is still miffed about having to live in a small cage until his big one arrives from Amazon (we put him in our old cage, but he was climbing up the bars and jumping off). Not to mention having to live in the basement because it's too hot this week and we don't have A/C.

Found a cover image for Condemned after searching for days. Not a great cover image, but one I can live with, which will be consistent with the image I found for Man-Eating Lesbian Pirates (the sequel). I just have to tweak the opening of the story to match the image.

Revised it from the start to half-way through. It's up to 63,000 words now and still growing, I'm guessing it'll be 85-90,000 when it's done. But the plot problems are figured out, and I mostly just need to get all the characters back together for a big punchup at the end.
 
That feeling of disgust when you're writing the pivotal scene and you realize 'son of a bitch this is just going to devolve into exposition. Victor the reason you write giant paragraphs is because you can't dialogue your way out of a wet paper bag.'

Yep. Everything is terrible.
 
VictorK said:
you can't dialogue your way out of a wet paper bag.'
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I'm having this very problem...right now. My draft is now only twice as long as it should be instead of three times but the days are ticking by. Keep at @VictorK I have my fingers crossed for you.
 
@SteveW unproductive ass in chair time beats not even trying. Plunk your butt in a chair. ;)

I've edited my way to under 10 000 words. My day job beckons. Slowly, I feel like I'm starting to get into the grove. Four scenes down, four completely deleted, twelve to go. Hoping to get the story into the workshop by Monday.
 
I'm halfway across my monthly target. See if I can't finish one thing before the endless partying begins.

Keep at it, Steve.
 
SteveW said:
I have totally lost the habit again. I haven't written a drop this month.
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Steve, do you use a writing calendar, or a spreadsheet, or anything to track your writing? I have found that those empty spaces, where word counts should be, can be a pretty good motivator.

It's fine to lose that habit, it happens to all of us. I had a pretty rough July, myself. We just need to find ways to get back on the horse, and stay on it. Look for motivation, and realize that we writers are playing the long game here.

Start small. A word at a time, a single grain of an idea. Build it out into a sentence. Write a sentence, every day, until that habit is there, and then take the next step.

Story ideas motivate. Deadlines motivate. Seeing those word counts grow motivates. Finishing something is incredibly powerful, even if it's only a flash or short story.
 
Averaging around 4000 words each week consistently, now, as I plow through the final version of my work. This doesn't include edits from the writing group crits. Nearly half way through the novel with ten chapters completed.
 
There may be something wrong with me this month....

Those who watched last season (sorry, last month!) will remember I've had two months where all I managed to write was a meagre 1000 word flash for the competition, and before that, my best efforts were a flash and a short story or some fragments.

This month's rough draft word count so far is 8000 words, including 1300 on the first draft of the flash entry and 5600 (and rising) for the Anthology.

Whatever's wrong with me, long may it continue!

(tracking thanks to the spreadsheet @Facing helped me with!)
 
SteveW said:
I have totally lost the habit again. I haven't written a drop this month.
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Hey, Steve, do you want to be my accountability buddy? I've had a very difficult time getting new words out since JD and I began our Pirate book. I really like working with JD, and there are many wonderful things about our collaboration and about collaboration in general, but getting words onto the page has not been one of them for me.

@Wilson Geiger's suggestion of tracking words is great! These threads started out that way, but then moved away from public record keeping as participation grew. I actually had the dream several months ago to post my word count in the thread every day. I was hoping to motivate myself by seeing the numbers grow, and entertain myself while doing it by good-natured annoying everyone with my numbers-only posts and seeing how far I could push the envelope. The only reason I'm saying anything about my plan now is that I haven't been able to start writing so that I can post a word count.

So what do you say, @SteveW? Do you want to do it with me? We could do that here or even off-site if we don't want to annoy everyone so frequently (i.e. we do have each other's emails). I'm going to take the weekend, look over my recent individual projects, pick one to stick to, and start writing on Monday.

So, what do you say?
 
RedMage said:
Hey, Steve, do you want to be my accountability buddy? I've had a very difficult time getting new words out since JD and I began our Pirate book. I really like working with JD, and there are many wonderful things about our collaboration and about collaboration in general, but getting words onto the page has not been one of them for me.

@Wilson Geiger's suggestion of tracking words is great! These threads started out that way, but then moved away from public record keeping as participation grew. I actually had the dream several months ago to post my word count in the thread every day. I was hoping to motivate myself by seeing the numbers grow, and entertain myself while doing it by good-natured annoying everyone with my numbers-only posts and seeing how far I could push the envelope. The only reason I'm saying anything about my plan now is that I haven't been able to start writing so that I can post a word count.

So what do you say, @SteveW? Do you want to do it with me? We could do that here or even off-site if we don't want to annoy everyone so frequently (i.e. we do have each other's emails). I'm going to take the weekend, look over my recent individual projects, pick one to stick to, and start writing on Monday.

So, what do you say?
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I was going to suggest the same thing, so good call! Heck, you both have my email, so feel free to hammer away.
 
I spent all of last night working furiously to get my Future War story ready to go, and I managed to submit it at 11:54, a full six minutes early.

The night's word count ended up at 1950. Talk about waiting to the last minute.

I really did like where the story ended up, and I think it's a good one, but we'll see how that goes. If they say no, it'll be a good candidate for future projects.
 
There are two things that separate a hobbyist like myself from a writer: a discipline and the capacity for real editing. I lack both (the latter is even harmful for my professional life), and so my goal for this month is looking increasingly unlikely. I have a couple long plane flights coming up, so it may be time to put real pen to actual paper and get out of my head. Damn you real writers and your submissions.
 
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