Update 12 24-30 Aug (2/16)

2 of 16

This is the second week of my 16 weeks until deadline. I am feeling a lot better about things and really getting things moving. I still need to write more days a week and stop being so lazy, but my goals are getting met.

In my two previous posts I mentioned that I have set myself a goal of finishing my entire rough draft by the 1^st of December. This date is the start of my Thesis 3 class. Wherein I’m supposed to start working on the revised draft of the entire novel. I have no idea what that will be like. Other than trying to make sure my continuity and flow is all better. Many of the first chapters in this book were written for various classes, and I had to write them without the preceding chapter being read by the reviewer/workshopper. So, there is a lot of repeated material in the first chapters.

But I digress, right now we’re all about rough draft and word counts.

Word Goals

My goal is to get 5500 words a week, every week, for the next 14 weeks. I am happy to say I made goal this week!!

I wrote 5641 words over three sessions. I finished chapter 18 and also went back and revised Chapter 6. The new chapter 6 is now sitting at 3513.

Chapter 18 comes in at 6666 words and my wip is now at a total of 76664 words. IT’s really starting to flow.

What does the story look like Now:

Chapter 6 was originally two vignettes tied together. But they were poorly handled. I wanted to introduce and entire cast of characters in a very fast manager and it was done badly. I literally had the pov character enter a room and look at each individual character and give a little description and her personal thoughts on them. It was bad. My revision took into account that I had not even bothered to set the scene.

Revision goals: 1, set scene; 2, intro characters through their words and actions; 3, make the scene really about the main character and her relationship with her foil. Bang! All three goals were met (I think) and the chapter was much better. I took the second vignette and moved it to a new chapter 7, and at some point, I will have to go back and revise that as well.

Chapter 18 is a Keegan chapter and is mostly about introducing the mantis and moving the timeline forward. It also featured a bunch of character growth between Keegan and Nemo. While I have conflict, I have not had an action sequence in a while, so I might have to change up chapter 19.

Next Week’s goals

Speaking of chapter 19, that should be the bulk of next week. This is a Rune chapter and is meant to concentrate on the Rune and the Marines arriving in Bartertown. Here they discover what might have happened to Keegan and Slater, and all the passengers from the derailed train. They are also going to encounter more rumors of escaped Imperial Prisoners having set up a personal fiefdom in the area.

I could probably add some action by having the agents of the criminals notice Rune asking too many questions about them and having these agents try to waylay the prince, only to discover that he’s tougher than he looks and that he has a unit of marines at his call. This is the beginning of the hard character turn for the prince as well.

School:

Two weeks off of school! Yay. This is my break between classes. While I do have to turn some of my free time to doing painting work, I really have no excuse to not take me school hours and turn them into writing hours. If I don’t blow my word goal out of the water, then it is purely due to my own laziness and I really have to reassess my self.

Also, almost all of my grades are in and it looks like another A term… 3 and half years of 4.0 is not too bad. Over 30 classes, and my two outliers are a B in my undergrad and an A- in one of my master’s classes. Not too bad.

Other Media

I promised I would try to add a little more substance to these Diary posts by including some reviews or thoughts of other media. I don’t know what to talk about. I have been ignoring a bunch of really good shows on streaming, just haven’t gotten around to them yet, in favor of watching a LOT of crappy movies. I’m over 60 movies and shows watched this month, the full list will be on my facebook (I’m writing this on Sunday, but it posts on Monday).\

Kamen Rider

I started a second watch through of Kamen Rider Kuuga, and I still love that show. Fantastic drama with a lot emotion driving it forward, even though a lot of episodes seem to have humor and silly stuff in them. You still get gut punched by several of the scenes and as the show gets further along, it gets more and more serious. These early Heisei era Kamen Rider’s are excellent for trying to make you cry in the last few episodes.

I’m also still working my way through the series toward the current seasons. I just finished Kamen Rider Ghost his month and started Ex-Aid. Ex-aid is pretty fun so far because of all the silly over the top video game references. But the dynamic of the characters always being at each other’s throats does get old quick. Supposedly the show is broken into 4 arcs, and I only just finished the first one. This next one is supposed to be more team building and the last half of the show is supposed to be US vs the Enemy. So I think I will like it a lot more the further I get in the show.

I’ll call it here. This is over 1000 words, and I just wrote 2800 for my novel, so I’ve been at the computer for many hours.