I am sick and tired
Actually, I have been a bit sick. That is why this post is on Wednesday April 1st and not Tuesday.
I’m tired because the cold I have has kept me breathing at night and sleeping well. So much for sick and tired.
Keep reading to find out what I’m going to quit (I don’t smoke so that’s not it either).
I think I’m going to keep using Scrivener
My initial experience with the new software (Scrivener) has been very good. While I really do miss the typewriter sounds of Focuswriter, it does seem a much better choice.
I like the way it separates scenes and chapters. It makes it a bit easier for me to visualize the chapter with it’s scenes separated. I think this is going to help me with structure and plot.
The ease of going back and forth is a big help. Trying to find something I wrote earlier (to make sure I remember it correctly) meant losing my place, hunting around for it, and then scrolling back to where I was. Now it’s one click to check a scene (which I can label with its contents) and one click back (or even a split screen with both open).
The Linux version has some annoying bugs but they are easy to overlook with all the positives it has.
Enough of that – what are the numbers?
There has been progress. Not as much as the numbers may imply. Who said you can only find the truth in mathematics?
Last week the total word count so far had been about 45000 words. Scrivener uses an actual word count (vs. a six character per word count). Importing into Scrivener boosted the total from last week to around 51700 words.
This week I wrote about 5300 words. Not anywhere near what I wanted but I’ve been sick for several days.
That brings my total word count so far to 57000. I figure I’m about halfway there. I don’t want the story to be too short and I know I’m going to be losing some of it in the editing. I’m not necessarily looking for a specific number of words, but to have enough meat to the story when it is done to be worth reading.
I’ve got long way to go in improving my production. Stacy Claflin, who recently switched to writing novels full time, is targeting 150000 words for just this month. She did more this morning than I’ve done in the last week. I do think I might be able to do 40000 in a month. That would put this book at nearly the end.
Almost forgot – What am I quitting?
I’m going to quit putting this off and making excuses. I’m going to write every day. It may be just a sentence or paragraph but I am going to write at least a little bit every day. On days I can, I go for a full target of 1000 or more.
No matter how tired. Unless I’m unconscious, I’m going to mover forward every day. I find that when I don’t, it seems like I am moving backwards.
Stacy Claflin says
Hey James,
Excuses are the best thing to quit! 🙂 Best of luck with your novel…and I agree that Scrivener is the way to go.
Stacy
PS: Thanks for the mention!
James says
Thanks Stacy,
You’ve given me something to shoot for. Well, maybe someday.
Best luck on the NaNoWriMo.