Last week was

I edited and worked up a thousand words on Zombie Report, a short story, so I'm now at 4k. I got the episode up for AudioTim and got halfway through editing a 12k short story.

My goals for this week are to finish editing that short story, finish the first 100 years of my timeline for 12SS, and work on Zombie Report.

In case you haven't heard, Eruheran, Phili, Vanya and I are collaborating on a new Quest: Novel Goals. The idea is to lay out our goals for finishing our novel in progress by Aug 8. Each novel is in a different stage, so come check out this thread and ride the wave! (insert mental emoticon of smiley face surfing)

(Shameless plug for the Critique Group meeting Tuesday night at 7pm Central Standard Time. PM me if you want to come, even just to join the discussion and see what we do so you can have an idea if you want to participate more next month. We meet in Google Docs, but you'll need an invite to the doc we critique.)

I intend to reach 750 words on "Pulp Rapunzel" in the first draft.

I don't have particularly solid goals at the moment. I want to keep working on edits for my NaNo; currently I'm just reading it through and cutting out words and adjusting awkward phrases. The plan is to spend an hour a day on that or a full chapter.

I'd also like to figure out how I'm going to start the next book I want to work on, but I have no idea of how, so it's kind of hard to make a goal out of that.

@Varon, keep pushing buddy!

@Leandra, I have a thread Steps to Starting a Story that could help you with that. Plus, an hour a day is a much better goal for the time-pressed since some chapters will take much longer to edit, though there is an argument for just working longer that day on editing if you have a tough chapter...

I'm pushing. I'm just having to not think of the ending, which I have two possible endings for.

Katir's study of music!

@Varon, what's your word count?/how far till the end? I've read that you want to make life so hard on your hero that even he doesn't know how it will end. By that, I'm referring to the emotional struggle he's enduring and which emotion he will choose in the end. Do you know what the emotional struggle is that he's fighting? Examples would be selfishness vs. virtue, pride vs. sacrifice, etc.

Are the two options radically different or do they both take place in the same area? If they are two diverging paths, then you might want to take some time to evaluate: pros and cons; what fits better with the ticking time bomb you planted at the beginning; how each sets up the future of the series; what is most natural to how your hero would act, etc.

@Elly, I'm glad you're excited about it!

For a more detailed summary of my progress with the family time line, I posted this thread.

I'll have to check that out, thanks.

I think I might shift my goal from an hour of editing to half-an-hour, and then use that other half hour to do other writing related things. For instance, work on a summary/synopsis for one of my stories so I can post it and the synopsis I did for the sequel on the challenge thread over on Sci-Fi.

@Leandra, that's a good idea if you can. My problem is once my brain gets started on something, it is hard to stop and switch gears. That thread will give you steps to work on for the half hour of writing related stuff. I have a problem with my mind style being one subject focused for long periods because it means I don't write everyday. Being able to edit and write everyday would be ideal.

The vague plot is revenge vs. justice. It's also a short story for a contest in a writer's group on FB with a maximum word limit of 10k and a deadline of May 25.

The two options involve the MC successfully rescuing his sister (the Rapunzel character) from the mad supervillainess The Witch OR accidentally killing his sister when a bullet goes through the wall. One is happy but doesn't necessarily quite have the tragedy that most super-hero origin stories have, and the other is very tragic but might cause him to quit being a proto-superhero.

@Varon Can you clarify how revenge is the opposite of justice in the context of your story and how the end is your hero choosing one or the other at great peril? I'm seeing revenge and justice as very similar, but I could be wrong in your context. Not all stories are written with this format, but some are inadvertent. I like the first option better for ending, but it depends on what your story is about. What is your character's main weakness, and how is this story attacking it?

He's a vigilante operating outside of the law, much like Batman.

The story isn't attacking his weakness, he's attacking the story to overcome the "survivor's guilt" he feels and rescue his sister. The contest it's for is to re-write a fairy tale in a different genre or style and Rapunzel was the first that didn't involve much magic and could easily be written in a super-hero/masked avenger style.

@Varon: If "survivors guilt" is his weakness, then your story should use that to push him to the brink so that he has to choose one of two opposing emotions. By story, I mean the conflicts that you put in your story. Also, how is "survivors guilt" a weakness? How are you making life hard on him? That should focus on his emotional weakness which is the only way to defeat him. If his sister dying is the ultimate way to attack this weakness, then I think it should happen, but that shouldn't be the end. You should use that to see how he responds in the emotional battle, which I don't know yet if he has one, and then his response is the end. I'm basing this advice off of Ben Bova's The Craft of Writing Science Fiction that Sells.

I don't think he actually has an emotional battle either. It's his Origins story, one of the conventions of the superhero genre that all heroes have.
Maybe I'll make a thread on that somewhere.

*wants to read this pulp Rapunzel story very badly*

I'm participating in Kat's music-writing study, so this week I'm writing at approximately the same time each day. I've been splitting my time between Alaidia, which I want to get working on so I can progress steadily towards my mid-June deadline, and a script, which is going slower than expected but still going, so I want to keep moving. As a side goal, I'd like to get some kind of world-building or story-development thread for Alaidia up, but I'm not sure what.

You'll be able to read it. I promise.

Thank you!

You're welcome.