How about a “Write 500 words a day” thread?

[snowqu33n]

I’ve previously benefited from MUNOWRIMO thread and I am working on another novel, but I want to stay consistent.
Any writers out there? Novelists, non-fiction writers, poets, or people who need to get their shit together to meet a deadline?
The goal is consistency, an achievable amount every day.
You can post your daily goal and how you are doing with it.
You can tell us the type of writing you’re working on, or just your daily word count.
Anybody interested?

Managed 1200 today. Total of 4750. Slow progress but progress nonetheless.

Had a few days of my good intentions being thwarted by school holidays but I got my words done today and typed up some of my handwritten scenes from last week.

Now I’m about 10,000 words in. I’m not sure if the pacing is right. I have a lot of ambitious ideas for the plot so maybe it will end up a lot longer than my previous novel, hopefully not too long, though! I’m going to keep pushing on through the first draft for now.

@snosnowqu33n Well done! 10k is fantastic. Ploughing through is great. I've also been thwarted by the school holidays and a fiesty four year old. One more week to go and hopefully after that progress will be much better.

The school holidays are getting me too. I managed to do some editing yesterday but nothing today apart from a short story I'm typing on my phone. It's difficult for me to get my laptop out at the moment as I know I'll be disturbed. Never mind, I've had some fresh American pancakes out of it. We love making pancakes during the holidays. I've managed to do a bit of reading. My creative writing workbook from uni has come in useful for the snapshots of time I've had. It's lovely dipping in and out of writerly advice, I always learn something new. Well done @snowqu33n and @anerki10 on your progress. It's great to see your novels are coming along nicely. Onwards and upwards 😊 📚 🖋

@anerki10 I'm so excited that you're writing romance 😆 I understand what you mean about switching genres. My short stories are often moody/the broken fairytale but they also have elements of love and the pursuit of it. My novel is uplifting with a gentler tone and voice. I've never written a true romance novel (HEA) but I've read a few and they've really touched me because they were beautifully done.

You can't beat watching a good love story too. The Notebook is a wonderful film ♥

Had a good couple of days. My handwritten stuff is now typed up, and somewhat edited at the same time, and today I wrote another thousand words or so. The plot is starting to move along and I am dropping in clues and foreshadowing.

We had a fantastic day in the mountains last week - blue sky all day and my body remembered how to snowboard. Made me feel years younger and jogged my memories of past seasons. I’m going to use a mountain setting in my next novel after this and I have an outline scribbled somewhere that I wrote last year.

Hope you’re all having a great holiday weekend, and an Happy Easter to those who celebrate it! Easter isn’t really a thing here and the school holidays are now over. I will be doing some drawing this week for art school, which I am looking forward to.

I found it a bit of a struggle last week to sit down and write, but I’m glad to have got back into it and kept going. I have more ideas coming through now.

If anyone misses a few days or even weeks and starts to feel negative about picking up where you left off, I can recommend parking any frustration with yourself and just picking up any old pen and scrap of paper.
Write one sentence, or a list of your favourite words and go from there.

Wise words @snowqu33n I love your idea of writing a list. I often jot down the odd word that sparks my interest. I've never thought to sit down and get a proper list together. I'm very often inspired by a single word or quote. It's surprising where they can take you. I'm pleased to hear you enjoyed snowboarding. The mountains make for an original and interesting setting. You could go anywhere with that.

It sounds like your novel is coming together nicely, foreshadowing and all. That's a word and technique I absolutely love 😍 Sometimes seeds are planted in my story and I haven't even done it intentionally. The same with images. I read out part of a short story I'm working on to my daughter who interpreted my character description in a different way altogether to what was in my head. Her version is better! This is why I'm so passionate about writing. I write it and the reader gives it new life. I didn't edit my novel at all yesterday, hoping for better things today. It's still the Easter holidays here. Back to normal on Monday. Have you managed to draw anything for art school?

I hope everyone else is enjoying their writing journey too. Even if it isn't as productive as you'd like it to be at the moment, thinking time counts too 😊

Hi everyone, excited and a little envious to read all your updates. Still doing morning pages but paid writing work (content mill type writing) has somewhat taken over my life and the creative writing has had to move aside for now. I will make time for it again when I can.

Did I kill the thread?

Ahh no of course not @Guillebeaux I haven't managed to do much writing these past few days. I'm back in work today so hoping to get some writing/editing done soon. Have you managed to get any writing done? It's hard isn't it, when work/family take over. Never mind, onwards and upwards 😊

😊 good luck, hope you get a chance to write/edit soon.

No writing but I've taken some photos and video footage of an important location in my novel, it felt like a useful thing to do.

Back again!
I’ve been busy transferring four years of an old blog onto my PC from where it was hosted, so I can keep a copy safe. I made it private about ten years ago for the sake of DC, but I had several thousand reads at one point. It was like reading through an old diary!

I haven’t got much further with my novel since last week but have about 14,000 words total.
I’ve re-written most of my children’s picture book instead and I’m trying to plan out the illustrations.
My favourite picture books when I was little were the Orlando books by Kathleen Hale and I am thinking of reading her autobiography “A Slender Reputation “.

No writing for me lately. The Easter holidays were an absolute killer. My 5yo was a nightmare. Back to school now but I shall be spending this week decluttering and sorting out the devastation that is my house. In the evenings I've got to focus on my uni assignments. Deadlines soon.

Hoping to get back on the writing beginning of May!

@Guillebeaux That's a brilliant idea. I'm sure your novel will be very visual. Have you ever thought of writing memoir? Photography would be an amazing aspect of your life to explore.

@snowqu33n Transferring the blog sounds like a mammoth task. I'm glad you managed to keep it. That would be a lot of words to lose. You never know, one day you might use some of it as material for a short story. Planning out the illustrations for your picture book sounds like a lovely job. My favourite book as a child was The Witches by Roald Dahl. It made me fall in love with reading. I'll never forget the illustrations. They brought everything to life and fed my imagination even more. You should definitely read Katherine Hale's autobiography if you loved her books. I keep meaning to read Roald Dahl's. It's in the library as we speak 😊

@anerki10 The Easter holidays wiped me out too. I'm still recovering! I'm back in work, and glad to be back, but very, very tired. Hence no writing today. I've been thinking of ideas though and listened to a writing video on YouTube while I went out for my run. How is uni going? What assignments are you working on at the moment? I miss studying. I used to love having a reading list in the summer ready for studying in September 📚 ♥

How has everyone been getting on after the Easter holidays? I got a bit caught up in art school stuff but finally moved forward again with a lot of words written longhand today.
I felt a bit rusty but it’s satisfying to see some progress.

God, my last post was weeks ago - that’s a lot of catching up I need to do. I got very distracted by Easter and other plans. I’ve had to read back to see where I was at! Thank you for calling me funny Belle - my husband won’t answer the door so he looks at me doing it like I’m very intrepid!

I DID get a notebook after my dithering. And then read Save the Cat reasonably thoroughly and have outlined much more substantially than before. All in the notebook by hand so it HAS been useful.

I thought airily that it would take an hour max but actually it’s now lunchtime and I’ve been at it since 8am, the time only punctuated by coffees. And I got quite stuck with my saggy middle and thought I was going to have to stop again to read the relevant bit of Save the Cat again but ploughed on.

So in short:

• I had a doc for years, fiddled around while distracting myself with ANYTHING
• Then procrastinated by buying books on how to write in sprints.
• deleted a load of writing
• Started with little sprints til I realised I wrote rubbish going nowhere.
• Bought the books on planning and outlining and procrastinated by choosing notebooks and did some more serious displacement activity
• Now outlined and nowhere to go but back to the sprints, with the book mapped out pretty well.

So I’m on here. Putting off the one thing I should be doing!

@snowqu33n It sounds like writing longhand is working for you. We'll done on your progres. I hope your art is coming along too. I was looking at paintings last night on the internet. Sometimes they inspire stories.

@Novelless I really need to read Save the Cat. It's one of those recommended books I keep seeing time and time again on the many writing tips I read. I'm glad you've got your outline sorted. I'm trying to plan but find it hard. I'm so used to finding out about my characters and plot as I go along. A plan worked for my most recent short story. I'd drifted off from the original idea, as I often do, but this time I reigned it back. I much prefer the finished, planned version.

Short stories seem to be what I'm working on at the moment. I'd love to try my hand at writing another novel. The question is, on what? Do you all draw ideas from life or do they just come to you fully formed? Every time I make a start on a novel it gets turned into a short story.

Hi @Bella43 good to see you again!
It’s funny, I haven’t really considered writing a short story since school. If I write something short it’s usually for children. So I’m the opposite but it’s easy to get lost on the way through a novel and stop halfway.
I like to think of the start and the ending and then some kind of exciting climactic scene and then ask myself how the characters ended up in the situations they do.
I’m naturally quite a long-winded person so a novel seems the right length to express myself and get to know the characters enough. I tend not to go over 70,000 words so it’s actually not that long. It’s the keeping going in the middle that I find hard.

That’s entirely due to the genre, though. I’m writing a mystery so the suspects, clues and motives all have to point to the same plot resolution.

However, it’s different if you’re writing something that’s more literary or human interest.
Why don’t you try something like Murakami and weave all your short stories together into one book? I think I’ve read a lot of novels where there are several protagonists’ experiences or vignettes which may or may not get woven into or out of each other’s stories.
I’m watching “The Power” on TV at the moment and that’s one example.

You may already have a novel there if you can think of a way to get your short stories to interact with each other!

I love that idea! A fixup, like Asimov’s I, Robot?

I love this thread - some great ideas and the notifications remind/motivate me to get my pen out, even if I write just one sentence it’s better than nothing.

Bella43 - I really recommend Save the Cat. I used to not bother with planning and let the characters go where they may and think I’d just write it, then tighten it all up at the end once I knew what the ending was and that’s what editing was for. And it was enjoyable and intuitive and felt natural.

Now, having seen looking back on an older MS that my pacing is not great in the middle and I wouldn’t publish myself (I thought it was quite good at the time of writing it) it has been a really useful tool. It’s the mannequin to hang the book on and will tell me how to pin it right and do the darts and gathers and hemming for a good (I hope) finished product.

For every chapter in the book I know exactly what needs to happen in it (where the success should be, where a false victory or defeat has to happen or where the rock bottom is) and the hook to the next one. I just need to write it. It’s made it easier to sit down and do 500 words anyway!

500 done this morning. No sprinting done but inching forward.

@snowqu33n I love the idea of placing all my short stories together. I already have 14 complete stories which speak to each other as they all have similar themes. As much as I'd like to make them all in the same world/town, the characters are too different to group as a novel. Maybe one day I'll write a collection that will become a novel. I'd never heard of Murakami until you said so I went off and read a short story of his. It was beautiful and surreal so thank you for that. Yes, the middle part of a novel is hard. I find that's where I get sidetracked and start writing something else! I'm surprised I completed my historical fiction novels.

@Guillebeaux It's an excellent idea, isn't it? I'd really like to read I, Robot. I'd also like to read other books that became films - Jurassic Park, The Martian etc.

@HappyHolidays22 I agree, this thread is so motivating. It's like I want to bring something to the table every time I come on here.

@Novelless The mannequin analogy is fantastic. I'm still writing little plans each time I start a new short story. It helps me see in the dark so to speak. I don't always stick to the whole list but it definitely works as a solid guide to get me from A to B.

How is everyone's writing going? I've written another two short stories and edited one I wrote weeks ago. I edited some of my novel today as well. It helps that my short stories are contemporary. Coming back to historical fiction afterwards is making it all feel fresh and original. I'd lost sight of it really. Having a little break has made me enjoy it again. I need to keep going now as I know I'll soon be coming to the scenes which needs a paragraph adding here and there. I think it's that which makes me keep shying away from it! 🙈

Oh, the movie I, Robot isn’t based even loosely upon the novel. The title is an homage to Asimov but the content is completely original except for the central theme of the three laws of robotics inspired by the book.

There is no copyright for titles as you probably know, but it’s misleading.

How long do your short stories tend to be? It’s good to hear about your writing and editing, I hope you enjoy adding the extra paragraphs when the time comes!

I published a story on Medium this week and it’s picked up a few comments and followers. I’m trying out various blog platforms such as Wordpress and Tumblr and I think I prefer Medium so far. It’s a similar style and process as the writing I do for work but on heartfelt topics.

My writing is stuttering forward.
I allowed myself to get out of the habit of writing daily, for a number of reasons, and now I need to look over my plot notes and get back on track. I managed about 350 new words today.

On the other hand, my sketches and drawings are going better…

@Guillebeaux Funnily enough, I was talking to my friend yesterday about titles not being subject to copyright. I was saying about the confusion of those books, Girl on a Train and The Girl on the Train. Very easy to order the wrong one, which a lot of people did. I like the sound of I, Robot, even though they're different I wonder if the film boosted book sales anyway? Maybe the author didn't mind them 'borrowing' the title if it lifted his work off the shelf!

My short stories are around 2500 words. A lot of them were novel ideas that never made it that far! I'd love to start posting them somewhere. Thanks for the recommendations. Medium sounds like a great platform. Was it nerve wracking getting comments? I'm excited to share my work but scared at the same time. It's like someone reading your diary, isn't it? I'm so pleased you've got some followers already. Here's hoping you'll get lots more.

As for adding in the extra scenes to my novel. Well, you won't believe this, but when I did some editing yesterday I found that I'd already put one of the scenes in! How on earth did that happen? That was the scene I was dreading too because I didn't know how I'd go about it. Honestly, I think I have too many balls in the air as Joey from Friends would say. I'd like to think the next scene is gift-wrapped too but I doubt that. It doesn't matter either way because I know it's typed out at the end of the draft and should be easy to just slot in (at the dance in the town hall to be exact).

@snowqu33n Great news about the 350 words. I know what you mean about getting out of the habit of writing daily. I'm now in the process of reading all the notes at the end of my draft, familiarising myself with the bits I need to add in and generally keeping the momentum going. I've made some good progress again today with the editing. I'm trying to stick at it every day from now on 😊
It's great to hear your sketches and drawings are going well. It must be lovely seeing your ideas come to life.