Write Every Day: Day 1

[the_siobhan]

So my first topic is the most obvious one, what are you all working on?

I participated in NaNoWriMo - it must be four five years ago now. At the end of the 50K words I put it down and never looked at it again. In October I finally dug it up and blew the dust off it, and although I'm not crazy about a lot of it I think it has good bones and there is stuff here I can work with.

So November is all about the second draft for me. I've started on doing some of the background research and that's probably going to suck up the majority of this month.



Day 1 Tally:
china_shop, sylvanwitch, luzula, badly_knitted, trobadora, falkner, alexseanchai, silveradept, shadaras, sanguinity, thevetia, nafs, cornerofmadness, lferion, sakana17, alexcat, marvelouscity, saki101, yasaman, solo, auroracloud, phrenk, shopfront, brainwane, dreamwriteremmy, ysilme, iberiandoctor, firecat, carenejeans

Comments

[sylvanwitch]

Good luck on your research! That sounds like an excellent use of NaNo!

I did NaNo for ten years straight but finally gave it up when it just didn't fit what I was writing and how I was doing it. It's a great model, don't get me wrong. It just had run its course for me.

Right now, I'm 86K into an original YA fantasy novel, and my goal for November is much the same as it has been for the past several months now--a minimum of 15K, which comes out to around 500 words a day. That's a pretty comfortable quota that I know I can usually meet without getting resentful of the work, so I'm going to stick to it. :-)

[the_siobhan]

I found it was good for the incentive to do something every day because I had a deadline. Trouble is once it was over I was sick of the story. WED kind of fits that role for me now and I'm less likely to burn myself out because I don't have as much pressure to be done by a certain date.

I read somewhere that Terry Pratchett had a goal of 400 words a day. That seems a quite modest but he did it every day. I've been trying to adopt that pattern myself. (Although I'm less good at doing it every day.)

[luzula]

Hi, thanks for hosting and good luck with your draft! : )

I am working on a longfic that will be at least 60K when done; right now it's a little over 30K. The fandom is The Flight of the Heron, set in mid-18th century Scotland. The working title for this one is "the poly fic", and my goal for the month is to get it over 45K. If I was just working on that I would set a higher goal, but I should of course also work on my Yuletide fic. I have some vague ideas for it, but the danger will be that I'm more motivated to work on my longfic.

Wordcount for 1st of November: 600
Total wordcount on poly fic: 31,600

Also I did a bit of brainstorming on my Yuletide fic.

[the_siobhan]

I have to admit, I'm a sucker for a good poly story.

Well done on your words!

[badly_knitted]

Good luck! I've never done NaNo, my preference is for writing short fanfic because my memory is terrible and I have to keep re-reading what I've written in an attempt to avoid contradicting myself. *grins* I'm seriously impressed with anyone who can write novel length!

Nov 1st - 1194 words, a short challenge fic and a double drabble for a different challenge.

Got a few rows of knitting done but most of the afternoon and evening was spent setting up my new craft community and writing the welcome post. I haven't counted the words in that though.

[the_siobhan]

I would absolutely count the welcome post as writing even you hadn't done all the rest. Sounds like a very productive day!

[trobadora]

Good luck with your second draft!

I have a bunch of exchange deadlines this month - femslashex, public_call, holmestice - and there's also Weilan Week which I hope to try to write something for. In addition to that I'm going to be brainstorming and preparing for Yuletide. Busy month ...

For the first day, I worked on my FemslashEx fic. I don't have many words yet, but I'm getting there.

[the_siobhan]

That sounds ambitious. I've never signed up for an exchange because I just know the deadline would go sailing by while I struggled with it, so I'm very impressed by people who can write for a project like that.

[falkner]

Checking in for day 1.

I'm also doing Nanowrimo! I haven't been writing a lot of words recently, so I'm not really expecting to be able to hit 50k, but I'm not too fussed over it.

[the_siobhan]

I figure Nano is one of those tools that you modify to suit yourself. I think I actually got closer to 30K in the actual month and then just kept going.

[alexseanchai]

it just hit me how much "j'ai rêvé (so I don't have to dream alone)"—the Halloween masquerade Miraculous Ladybug fanfic in which Our Heroes don't remember being heroes or having powers outside their dreams; in related news, The Villain played himself—is relying on being an intense sensory experience.

[the_siobhan]

I'm not familiar with that fanfic. It does sound pretty intense.

[silveradept]

November threatens to be a busy month for me. I'm ahead of the game in that I'm already up to appropriate draft length on Yuletide and have two fic ready to post for already due exchanges, but I'm likely to have three more exchange assignments appear this month, with variable deadlines, possibly plus one, depending on when they decide to have sign-ups, so I should have a good amount of work in very different fandoms to work on through the month.

Day One is more work on the Yuletide draft, which feels like it's getting close to an ending slot, but it's not there yet.

[the_siobhan]

That sounds incredibly ambitious. Good luck!

[shadaras]

Hello! This month is for fanfic! I'm planning on doing highadrenalineexchange in the second half of this month, finishing up my MDZS Big Bang fic (I'm at ~19k out of a projected ~30k), and other assorted exchange things. :)

Today I wrote 2.5k to finish a pinch hit. It needs editing, but that's what the rest of the week is for.

[the_siobhan]

I'm always impressed when you post your wordcounts. I have no idea how you do it.

[sanguinity]

Hello! Thank you for hosting!

I have an exchange assignment, holmestice, due this month, which I haven't started yet. I've also got three Hornblower stories I'm currently working on: two medium-length and one longfic. I'd like to get at least one of the two shorter ones published this year, so I'd like to get within spitting distance of that this month.


For today, I wrote 500-odd words of one of the shorter Hornblower fics, plus finished transcribing the last bits and bobs of the week's longhand.

[the_siobhan]

Well done! If you can keep that up you're well on your way.

[thevetia]

Hi! I'm trying to get back into writing since I last did Write Every Day back in March. I'm working on a Guardian story from an idea I started in February. So far today - 216 words, and a lot of mental brick walls. If I can't make progress in this one I might work on an AU epic I've been mentally doodling for months.

[the_siobhan]

Welcome back!

I hear you about the mental brick walls. I always have at least three stories going at any given time just because I'll hit a wall with one and switching to something else means at least I'm doing something.

[nafs]

I haven't formally participated in Nano in yonks, although I occasionally poke about to see what my region is doing. The thing I'm working on now I tried finishing a first draft as part of Nano and that was A Mistake. It's still a terrible mess in need of much fixing. Today I managed two sentences and that will have to do as a start.

[the_siobhan]

I feel you. I think that's why I didn't touch my own project for so long - the goal turned into maximizing output over enjoyment and that kind of spoiled it for me.

[cornerofmadness]

I'm working on my nano and trying to finish the fandom trumps hate Buffy story that's been killing me all year.

I got 593 words on the nano and 2099 words on the Buffy story

[the_siobhan]

That's a pretty impressive wordcount. Well done!

[lferion]

Day 1 - 213 words on a double drabble, multi-fandom.

Goals for the month include writing a minimum of 100 words every day and reporting in here and at Mini_Wrimo; making a DW post (I have been woefully remiss in posting for ... a really long time); writing and posting pieces for the 3 fan-flashworks challenges; writing and hopefully posting for the Silmarillion Writer's Guild November challenge.

Stretch goals include finishing the Innumerable Stars treat that is in process, writing Yuletide drabbles, and writing an Highlander Holiday Shortcut treat.

Thank you for hosting!

[the_siobhan]

Those sound like excellent goals. And I hear you on the DW posts - part of my impetus for offering to host was that I figured it would help me get back into the habit.

[sakana17]

I did write in October, but didn't do any check-ins and I missed having that extra bit of motivation. So I'm resuming Write Every Day this month. :)

Day 1: 773 words.

[the_siobhan]

I find it really helps me. Glad to have you back. :-)

[alexcat]

I write 207 today on a pallet cleanser fic after doing Kinktober this year. - 40k of it! Today being Day 1 even though I'm typing this after midnight!

I'm starting on the full court press to finish my MTH2019 fic then the holiday challenges that always do - Yuletide, Holmestice and Cap-IronMan Holiday exchange.

So onward!

[the_siobhan]

I like the idea of a "pallet cleanser".

And it's not tomorrow in my book until you've had breakfast.

[marvelouscity]

Hi! Thanks for hosting this month. :)

Right now I'm working on an original sci-fi pilot script that I've been working on for the last few months - I keep saying that I'll have the finished draft done by x date and then not happening, but as of right now I have about 16-17 pages left. I'm sort of doing Nanowrimo but just as a motivation to get more work done ... which so far has not worked, but my goal is to write an average of 5 pages a day for the month.

But for day one I wrote 3 sentences so that's better than nothing?

[the_siobhan]

There are a lot of days I don't even get my alibi sentence down, so three is definitely progress.

[saki101]

Good luck with your second draft! It's wonderful that you're returning to a story you drafted several years ago. I find that inspiring!

1 November check-in: 100-200 words or so. It's a vague estimate because it consisted of little things that I added to a story I posted about two minutes to midnight yesterday. I had wanted it to have a Halloween posting date since it was for a spooky exchange, but achieving that meant that I put the minimum required in the header and next to nothing in the notes, so I could hit that post button! Today I went back and added tags and notes and expanded the summary a little bit. Tomorrow, I will think of the future (I hope!), but that was it for Day One!

[the_siobhan]

Thanks! We'll see if it actually goes anywhere.

Two minutes to the deadline definitely counts. (One of my all-time favourite quotes is Douglas Adams, “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”)

[china_shop]

My plans for November are fivefold: 1) Finish a late treat for a thing; 2) draft a treat for Yuletide (this is a fic I tried to write last year and couldn't, so we'll see); 3) make more progress on chapter 2 of WIP#2 so I can post chapter 1 which is ready to go, in good faith; 4) I'm not doing NaNoWriMo, but I thought I'd try a NaNoWriWeek and see if I can bash out 10k of original fic over 7 days or so; 5) oh yeah, and I have an auction fic (WIP#1) due by the end of December, which I've been stuck on for months (*does not freak out, does not freak out*). :-)

It feels like a lot.

Day 2: About a thousand words added to the late treat, more than doubling its original length and necessitating it going back to beta before I can post. \o?

[the_siobhan]

It sounds like a lot to me too, good luck!

One of my reasons for doing this this month is that I have two weeks off at the end of November - I'm hoping to spend my free time working on my writing project, so a NaNoWriWeek sounds like a really good plan.

[yasaman]

Only thing I'm willing to commit to finishing this month is my Yuletide fic. Once that's taken care of, I might poke at some shorter fics or start on something mid-length. Today's progress: 524 words on the Yuletide fic.

[the_siobhan]

Sounds like good progress so far. Well done!

[solo]

Checking in for 1 November, managed a grand total of 262 words, which beats what I wrote in the month before.

[the_siobhan]

A rest is never a bad thing. Here's hoping the rest of the month continues to go well.

[auroracloud]

Hi! Thanks for hosting this month!

This time I'm actually trying to do NaNoWriMo. I haven't done it in a long time for real - I tried a few years ago, I think, but it didn't get very far because I didn't know enough what I was doing with the story. I write my original stuff in my native language, Finnish, which is structured really differently from English and basically takes far fewer words to tell the same thing, so 50,000 words in Finnish corresponds to something like 80K-90K in English. So it's a biiiiiit much of a challenge. But I've been working on this space opera story idea for at least half a year - I think I started it when I last hosted WED? - and I really wanted to get myself to properly start it soon, so I decided to give NaNoWriMo a go, because I felt I needed a deadline for starting to write. Hopefully the momentum and the peer support from others doing it will help me with the writing. Because of the whole word count deal (and because I've started to study for a new degree recently), I'm not going to stress too much about hitting the actual NaNoWriMo goal. If I get there, great, but if not, something like 25K or 30K is a very respectable amount to aim for.

Yesterday I got a little over 1500 words - so not quite the NaNo daily goal, but Scrivener was acting up like heck so that took up some of my writing time. I never had issues with it before, but now it keeps freezing. I eventually ended up starting a Word document instead. I haven't used Word for creative writing for years, but I recently got it for free via my new school, and at least it doesn't tend to freeze on me. Anyway, a substantial part of the writing was infodump but la la la I don't care it's writing!

[the_siobhan]

Yeah, it sounds to me like 25-30K is entirely more reasonable for writing in Finnish. And that makes your first day word count entirely within target.

And your comment about Scrivener anticipated my day 2 topic. ;-)

[satoyan]

Hi, thank you for hosting this month!

I am going to try nano this year. I don't usually write very much, so I might not make it, but my goal either way is to write every day (a lot if nano, at least a sentence if not).

Day 1: 2,047 on nano.

[the_siobhan]

You say you don't write very much, and then you blow me away with a 2K check-in.

You will be fine.

[shopfront]

I managed a few hundred words of Nano on the 1st plus reviewing my draft and planning notes (I'm aiming to add 50k to an existing shortish start of a novel, not starting fresh this year), and called that good enough for a start.

Besides Nano, I need to finish my femslash ex and public call assignments as a bare minimum, and I'd like to do a bit more work on my fffx assignment and smallfandombang if I can manage it because those are bigger than usual fannish works that need chipping away at. Perhaps even start/continue the things specifically due in December too, but that's probably too ambitious, haha.

[the_siobhan]

That sounds ambitious enough!

What I'm working on, and count

[brainwane]

Day 1 count: 428 words.

I'm new to this group -- thank you for hosting it, and happy to meet the other participants (some familiar names - hi!). I may be the only person here working on a nonfiction project? I'm working on a book to help teach maintainer skills for open source software projects. Aiming at 400 words a day -- as you said, the_siobhan, Pratchett's model!

Re: What I'm working on, and count

[the_siobhan]

That sounds like a really interesting project. I've always been fascinated by the concept of open source, although I don't code.

I gotta tell you, when I first read about Pratchett's model it changed my life.

[dreamwriteremmy]

Day 1 wordcount: 287/50000

Reprising Rebel Collection for NaNo, which is honestly mixed genre write whatever I wanna write from my epic project list. Lol.

[the_siobhan]

I find that having multiple projects is the best way there is to get past writer's block.