Yes, he does! They're always encouraging to read.

I'm... reading my book aloud! And I'm daring to be different and writing the edits in light blue and pink, instead of red. (I got pretty colored pens for my birthday. Must use them. ) I keep getting a feeling that I should video tape me reading aloud, and I'm not sure why... what would I do with it? review my acting? My reading? My editing? Use it for promotion? No clue, but I might end up doing it. I had siblings piling around me all day to listen, and I added that to my list of occupational hazards.

Reading your book out loud is an excellent way to revise.

eru

I'd like to see you reading outloud, Vanya. That's a test every book should undergo: whether or not a family can gather 'round the couch and listen to it until Mommy's voice gives out.

It can also be a good litmus test to see if dialogue flows naturally.

eru

I should read my book out loud when I'm done with it.

Great job everyone!

Total wordcount: 10,848

And I just realized a fatal flaw in my plan. My goal is to finish by November 31st. It just occurred to me that there is no November 31st. It's one of those troublesome thirty-day months. I had my goal set for a date that doesn't exist.

Ah well. I'll be finishing by November 30th, then.

That's what it's helping with, Eruheran. If I trip over something, I say it, but more often I automatically compensate, and then realize I need to write in the alternate phrasing. Very much fun.

Good. You hit a milestone.

Yes! *hands RedWing Philli-cake*

eru

It seems like that most of my books turn out longer (occasionally shorter) than I'd planned.



Always.


Way to go, Red!

Is that the new way to spell "cupcake"?

Yes.

eru

Now whenever I eat a cupcake I'll call it a Philli-cake.

Anyhow. Keep writing!

Don't blame me!

*noms a Phili-cake*

Well, there's been a little set back in my goal, it seems...My wrist has been really bugging me ever since yesterday afternoon. So unfortunately I won't be doing large amounts of writing until that resolves...

I'll catch up, though.

*gives RedWing more cakes and tells her to get better*

I'm still waffling as to what my next novel will be, but I think I've settled on something. My co-author and I are brainstorming at the moment...

My wrists are back to normal, now. But I'm dreadfully behind. Some of it is because I got writer's block after taking a break for a few days.

So, I'm going to take another few days off from writing, and plot, plot, plot, and hopefully that'll cure most of the cases of Writer's Block that I'll get throughout the story.

Ugh, whenever I take a few days off writing I feel so worthless and lazy. I worked 17 hours on Saturday and got major sunburn on my face, so the past week has been rough.

I'm going through a stage right now that this period of injury has exacerbated. I don't know if it how hard I've been working on this book since April/May, but I'm getting kind of burnt out. I pressed hard to have the book ready for Aug 12 conference, but on Aug 1 started what became a complete (or so) rewrite. I wrote 32k in August and only like 7-8k since. Granted, I've been working on my flash fiction edits/rewrite and I also recently took a worldbuilding class with Karina Fabian through savvy authors. So, I've slowed way down to try and build the universe around my neuronet idea and whenever I'm worldbuilding or plotting I feel like I'm not getting as much accomplished. It's also harder to motivate myself to do those things because by necessity they require sitting and thinking. That leads to distraction and counterproductivity.

My goal is to finish the lessons for my worldbuilding class, get some more writing in on my novel, and finish my flash fiction this week.

How bout yall?

By way of promo, there is a free workshop in the beginning of October, that is actually a lot of mini and weeklong workshops. I'm sure there are some that could benefit you. http://themuseonlinewritersconference.com/forum

Well...I finished outlining my novel, and it seems I have not overestimated my wordcount, like I had thought, but rather, underestimated. By about 18,000. That's a lot.

That being said, I'm going to re-work the goal date for my novel. I'm still going to try to hit 100,000 by November 30th, but for the final 18,000, I'm going to extend the date. I'm not sure how much. Probably about fourteen days or so. (I should be able to write 18,000 words in two weeks. )

That sounds like a good goal, Tim.

I'm so glad your wrists are better, RedWing! Your goal sounds great. Have a cupcake and keep pluggin'!

*tentatively walks in*

I'd like to finish outlining my third draft of The Masked Bird by October 1, and then my goal is to finish the third draft by the end of May. After that, I'm not sure, since I (hopefully) won't be doing complete rewrites anymore.

Yay, Raven! I'm glad you've joined us.

Well... I normally hate deadlines, but... *bites lip*

I want to have all the characters and at least a quarter of all the work required for Murel's primary language done by the end of the year. *winces*

I'm not sure if that is realistic or not... but I'll hopefully have a better grasp on my situation as I get more done.

@RedWing: You can do it!

@Raven: TMB!

@Mark: Murel! OK, I will be eagerly watching to see what you come up with. *excited*

I've been working on my novel, but I'm still going to have to push the deadline back, probably about two weeks to a month, just because there are one or two unforeseen big plot tweaks I forgot about when I set that =P Hopefully by the 25th or so I'll have a better idea of how far I'll need to push it back.

eru

Mark! I'm so happy you're in there, setting goals! *tosses cupcakes*

Keep pluggin', Andrew! You are doing fantastically!

*eagerly eats cupcakes*

Keep plugging away at it, Andrew. I'm loving what you've been doing to TTF.

If by doing you mean mangling...

@Mark: By the way, chat me sometime about the Murel characters - I want to hear about them

eru

@Andrew: Does that mean I have to wait longer to read it?

I'll try to have the beginning done by October 1, so you can still read it then

eru

Good plan.

Of course I don't mean that.

Ok. It will probably make more sense in real life though.

OK. So...October 1 is here, finally I've got one massive scene that needs to be completely rewritten (The Enclave scene with Samsvar, Mark ), plus a plot-line which needs to be more consistent, plus a few odds & ends. So...I'm going to push back the deadline two weeks, to October 15th. After that, I'll be done whether I like it or not

*deep breath*
*dashes off to write*

eru

*squeals of delight* Go Andrew! *tosses cupcakes*

Ug. I hate to do this again but I'm postponing my deadline. Again.

There are some things that have come up, and they will be keeping me from reaching my goal. 1) We're recording a CD at the end of October. We will be in the studio all day long for a week. So I doubt I'll be able to get anything done then, not to mention we're working hard on the songs when I would generally get my writing done. 2) Some of you might know that I just got a graphics program. When I made my goal, I hadn't been expecting to get it until at least around Christmastime. Learning that takes priority. (I have a subscription to a website with hundreds of great tutorials. I will only have a subscription for three months. In order to get through what I need to get through, I need to hit it hard.)

I was thinking at this point that I should push my goal back to New Year's Eve, because finishing a novel on the last day of the year seemed like a good idea. Until I realized that we'd be frantically getting ready to hit our first two/three month tour.

So I really have no idea when to set my goal. We'll see.

Those are exciting reasons to have to postpone your goal, RedWing. I'm so glad you're sticking with it despite your other pursuits, but I'm looking forward to seeing what you draw with the graphics program! (Not to mention this CD sounds intriguing.) Keep it up!

*bounces in, outline held aloft*

I finished! I managed to add enough new scenes to have 3.4 more chapters than I did last draft!!! I'm hoping to get enough ideas as I write to push everything forward a bit to have four complete new chapters. As a conservative estimate...I'll probably end up with at least 57K this draft. I'm hoping for 60K, but I don't know if that will happen.

So....as far as goals are concerned, I would like to be done the third draft by the end of May, which means doing two chapters a month, with four chapters in December and three in March. Therefore, I would like to be done to the end of chapter two by the end of October.

You go, Raven - you can do it! *borrows Bush's glass case and carefully hands Raven a cupcake with appropriate pomp and decorum*

*grins and eats cupcake*

*laughs* I'm happy for you, Raven! Keep it going!

If you keep having to push your goal back, at least it's because lots of awesome stuff is happening.

*is back to set a goal *

I want to be done with the 2nd draft of my second book in my trilogy (which means writing 5 full scenes and wrapping up my ending), as well as finished with my 3rd draft (rereading, checking for edits, checking for consistency, and fleshing out anything I find lacking) by November.

That's a good goal. I, and all the other test readers, will be waiting.

*is patiently and excitedly waiting*

Go, Airi!

Wait...you're working on the second and third drafts at the same time?

No, no. I want to finish the second and then do the 3rd.

*claps* I'm thrilled for you, Airianna!

*bounces*
*is waiting excitedly and not-entirely-patiently* Go Kait!

I'm down to two to-dos left on my list and will hopefully knock out most of the lesser one today

eru

Okay, goal: I want to go over Firmament and tweak it. I need to fix some motivational issues and one small theological issue, and then deal somehow with making the technology more realistic. I'll probably be posting on HWSF a lot. I want to keep this month from getting too writing intensive, because we all know what next month is...

*gives Andrew cupcake*

I like that goal, Grace. Not only does it involve Firmament - therefore, I am happy - but it also sounds balanced. Progress but not too intense, like you said. Plus I'm not arguing with the idea of "posting on HWSF" a lot...

If Phil's happy, I'm happy.