( list's gettin' kinda long )
Monday, 28 April: 102 words

23,117 / 120,000 (19.3%)

One week to go in the 70 Days of Sweat program, and, well, after all the bally-hoo...not much wordage to show. Was it a waste of time? No. I rethought the beginning of the wip several times, and think that now I have the makings of a decent opening in which something happens within the first few pages. Other plot drivers knocked on the door and made themselves at home, and I'm not sure I'd have thought of them if the guilt over lack of word production hadn't spurred me to thinking.

I hate to think that I require true panic in order to write. It doesn't bode well, it really doesn't. It also doesn't make sense. I cleaned off my desk yesterday, and uncovered a stack of magazine articles I had set aside for research. Local crimes. Industrial espionage. Gene therapy gone wrong. Maybe my interests fall into certain set categories, but they're my interests and I like them and working them into stories is the best thing in the world. And there are new stories there to be mined, but first I need to finish this one.

1 December. D-Day. That will be, I am afraid, the only date that will spur me onward. So, here it is.

...and sometimes your process changes, and I have no clue whether that is what is going on here or not.

I've always been a linear writer. I wrote scenes in order, beginning to middle to end. Wrote the book in order, beginning to middle to end. I had tried more than once to write scenes out of order as a way to jumpstart the daily output, or because a scene begged to be written and I didn't have the patience to write the intervening stuff before giving in to the fun. That material, for the most part, did not make it into the final book. It didn't even make it into the draft, because when I went back and wrote the stuff leading up to it, things veered from target sufficiently that the out-of-order scenes didn't fit and couldn't be made to fit with what the work had become.

So what am I doing now? I'm currently writing a scene that takes place during the last third of the book. I swear, I don't see how the book as it is planned could do without this scene--I found some interesting info about death by pressing (not a way to go) that just fits the character involved, so I'm working out the scene. After that, I will work out another pivotal scene, then another and another, until I have this array of beads that will be (hopehopehope) ready for stringing.

I'll see how far this takes me. For the time being, I'm looking at is as writing-as-painting. Instead of perfecting one portion of the canvas before moving to the next, I'm sketching the scene entire. Then I'll move to washes of color. Then the details will be filled in, more and more and more. Until it's done, or I run out of green.

8398 words so far, during this 70 days of not-yet-breaking-a-sweat. Not where I thought I'd be when I started this exercise. I think I'm going to avoid mizkit's and cmpriest's running talleys for the duration, because they have written more in the first three and a half months of the year than I usually write in nine or ten. Figuring 225 words/page, I have written about 37 pages. I pumped that out in one day during the writing of ENDGAME, but iirc I had entered the panic zone. I'm not panicked yet, though I am worried. I keep telling myself that sometime in September, I will ponder selling my soul to get April back. That's the hook under my skin that I need to feel now. But baseball's begun and the Cubs are starting out well. I'm seeing daylight where the basement is concerned. I need to get those tomato seeds started. Wiscon is next month, and I'm already looking forward to it.

On the other hand, plot matters seem to be moving along. So, we'll see.

Thought I might hit a thousand words, but didn't. 691. But, ended a difficult scene that I swear goes on too long. But. That's a worry for another day.

It doesn't have to be perfect.

I can fix it later.

But to do that, I need something to fix.

I'm a rewriter, not a writer.

Every phrase a jewel--we're not there yet, OK? Deal.

I can look it up later. Don't need to know Right This Second. Insert a comment and move on.

It would be nice to break a 1000 today, you know.

I started strong on this 70 Days thing, but it's been rocky lately. Tired. Not an evening writer. Sick of this damned scene that just doesn't want to get writ.

Said it before, that I thought I had figured it out. Well, I think I have figured it out. But I'm at the stage where I write 100 words and it feels like a thousand, which I think has to do with the fact that I'm inserting this scene a sentence at a time, then checking the flow. Should just settle down and write it. But I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open now, so, sleep, pathetic word count or not.

I need more day in my day. I also wish this MacBook black keyboard wasn't so damned hard to see in low lighting.

Not many words produced the last few nights. 321 on Monday, 14 on Tuesday. I blame a particular scene, which I discussed a little bit here. It's part of one of the chapters I had turned in as part of my proposal, and on first reading, it worked. Editor made a sound suggestion with regards building up one aspect with an additional scene, which I decided to work on before diving into the first new chapter.

And damned if the thing didn't flip over on me. It isn't antagonist that's in trouble, it's my POV. And it's real trouble, the fallout of which will still be an issue almost two hundred years later. It took a few days to figure this out. I am hoping that what I lost in word production I more than made up for in lack of future flailing.

I know it's only the first week, but the 70 Days thing seems to be working as I hoped. My brain is mulling over Book almost constantly now that I have this self-imposed deadline in my head

I would dearly love to get the first draft of the wip finished, or pretty damn close to finished, before Wiscon. That goal dovetails nicely with this exercise in masochism, which I stumbled over by way of of difrancis' blog. I signed up. It runs March 1 through May 16, so I have a couple of weeks to build up momentum.

Anyone with me???????