Beating out the Lazy

Journal #31 03-09 January 2022

I’m going to try and be quick today.

I feel like a lazy son of a B. I really do. This week had ample opportunities to write and yet I have been finding myself wanting to curl up and watch a good drama, or read some comics.

This week we had an ice storm on Wednesday, though I ended up leaving the house and taking 3 hours to get to work. So that was not going to be a writing day. But I had Thursday off, and did I write? No. Do I have a decent excuse… well partially. But not really.

Then Friday we had a snow storm and half way through digging out my boss called and said not to bother coming in he was staying closed. So, did I spend all of Friday getting a massive jump on the novel? Did I write. Nope.

I’ll tell you what… I have a bad back and heart problem… I spent two hours shoveling snow and then came into my house and immediately got back in bed with a hot cup of tea and watched a Korean TV show and snuggled into a blanket. It was a beautiful, comfortable day… until I tried to stand up a few hours later and my back went out and I ended up lying on a heating pad for hours.

Word count

But guess what. Despite having tons of extra time, to get tons of extra writing done, I still managed to get my basic weekly word count in. You would think that winter would be the perfect time to write. I don’t want to go outside and there is plenty of time to sit here drinking tea and writing.

Either case I got in two sessions when I could have easily gotten in four, or five. I hate myself a little, but I’m still happy to have any progress. And I’m still willing to shame myself for the handful of you who read these posts.

I knocked out 6175 words this week, in two sessions and I completed an Interlude, and two chapters. The manuscript sits at 132931 total words. I stopped and figured out my average per chapter and holy hell… I’m averaging about 4154 words per chapter. Which is a little crazy. I have about 21 more planned chapters to go (and these ones are averaging to be shorter than the earlier chapters.

I mentioned in last week’s post that I tend to write tighter, shorter chapters in the last third of the book as I rush through the climax and final action sequences. I’m aiming for about 2000 words per chapter from here to the end. Which is still 42000 total words. Around 180k for the final book then.

Outlining

I’m only a hybrid planning/panster, so my outline is very loose and easy to alter. That said, I’m going to try and stick with it. I’m also starting to gear up for planning the next book in the series.

I have the basics but I need to define the stories and work on the supporting cast and start mapping various scenes and events. Also make literal maps of areas.

I also like to cast people for the characters, so models, actors, artwork etc to represent each character. I haven’t done that with my current book (since several of the characters are from my thesis novel where I did use pictures for all of them).

But I’m sure you don’t want to hear me waxing on and on about what I PLAN to do…

Snow Week.

I have a love and hate for snow. I don’t like to drive in it or really go out in it anymore. But I do love when it covers lawns and the hills and such.

My favorite saying is ‘black streets and white landscapes.’ Meaning that as long as the roads are clear I’m happy, and I do love the blanket of white on top of everything. It’s peaceful and nice, and I would rather be cold then be hot.

I’m beginning to run out of things to watch, so that’s making me sad. And I’m falling very far behind in my reading (since I’ve been watching tons of foreign shows so I need to use my reading time with subtitles).

My mind is wandering right now, thinking about things I could be watching. Ha ha. I have a ton of dvds to get through as well, some classic Doctor Who, horror movies, and some Sentai and Ultraman to watch. I have the entire Zatoichi boxset to work through as well. Maybe I have too many things on my lists.

Anyway. I hope you’re all staying warm and enjoying the weather. It might be cold but that’s perfect for a blanket, hot tea (or cocoa, coffee), and a good book, TV show, movie. Snuggle up readers, enjoy this time while we have it.