First Draft
“Quinn”. Page-a-day, started June 1. On the 13th, I woke up and realized how the story was actually supposed to go, so I had 12 pages of rambling fishhead. I finished with 19 pages.
“Doll Heads”. One of them there flash fiction challenges, wrote 1700 words June 5 (Sunday).
“Axilism”. 1300 words, another flash fiction challenge. I wanted to write about 800 words this time, first draft, because I always wind up with 70% extra on these challenges. I didn’t meet my target, though the challenge didn’t actually have a word limit this time. I wrote it Wednesday morning at work.
“Familiar”. Weekly flash fiction challenge. Wrote about 2600 words on Monday. Why is it these 1000-word things always come out so long?
Steampunk Superhero. Weekly flash fiction challenge based on a true story, came in at 950 words! Wrote it on Saturday, typed it on Sunday.
“Fairfax”. Page-a-day, I might have just accidentally started a novel. I have at least 10,000 words plotted out, anyway. I’ll probably read some books for research for this guy in the coming weeks. Right now, it’s caught my imagination, and I’d love to keep the energy well into the middle. . .
Editing
"The Rabbits". Completely changed the hidden character because the way I was trying to write it wasn’t working. This was really part of the fourth draft that I started in May.
“Dowsing”. Changed the POV and added some logic to the worldbuilding, which made the ending work.
“Chickpea”. Typed – came in just shy of 4000 words.
“Take Down the Lot of You”. Chuck Wendig challenge – started with 1700 words that I needed to get down to 1000, and also make the story make sense. Not sure it was entirely successful, but whatever.
“Doll Heads”. Typed June 6. Draft 2 June 6 (Monday), Draft 3 June 8 (Wednesday), Draft 4 June 9 (Thursday) and posted. I had to do a bit of research on this one – puritans, waterwheels...
“Axilism”. Since I wrote it on Wednesday morning, I only had one day to let it “age” before I had to revise it and post it. It got longer by a couple of hundred words in the editing, but that’s because I decided I really needed to say who the characters were.
“Familiar”. I’d sat down at the kitchen table and wrote to the end, then wrote a beginning because otherwise it made no sense. I typed it with the beginning first, Tuesday. Wednesday I removed almost 1000 words and revised the ending. Thursday I got rid of the outstanding 650 words and posted the story.
“Steampunk Superhero”. Opened the file, just couldn’t work on it on Monday. I wasn’t ready, I guess. But that night I went to sleep thinking about the main character’s steampunk superpower. Once I had that...
Ignoring
“Succubus”. Short story; working on 2nd draft
Troll.
Pampelmouse. I was out for my weekly run in Brookbanks park, and there were three red birds. I thought to myself, how odd to see three cardinals all together, and all male. Then I looked a little closer, and realized they were not cardinals (I’m not ruling out the possibility that they were juveniles or something, I know nothing about birds really – but they didn’t have what I think of as Cardinal color or beak). Some kind of parakeet maybe? They must have escaped or been liberated. Pampelmouse is coming true, which I guess is a sign that I should work on it.
“Imp Face”. Needs to be typed.
Pause.
Being reviewed
Apophis. (on OWW – two crits from April... one liked it, one hated it) Third crit in May, didn’t seem to hate it.
“Karate Zombies”. Lent my printout to a friend who kept asking to read it. It’s really hard to hand someone something you know is partly flawed, without telling them all the flaws you know are there. He went on holiday to Belgrade (bastard! I want to go to the Tesla museum!) so he had it for several weeks. He came back, and he told me basically the best compliment you can say to a writer – he liked the voice. And not to wreck it, because right now it sounded like me, he could hear my voice, and that’s what made it good. I was so happy! He also mentioned a few things, like some of the transitional elements lacked information, and everything goes along for a while and then all of a sudden there are zombies (which goes along with an idea I already had that I need to make it clear that this is a zombie novel from chapter 1, not chapter 7 like it is now). Steven did a couple of things that constitute a good crit – he gave positive feedback in addition to negative (and not just that he’d gotten all the way to the end) and also, what was missing. It’s really easy to comment on what’s there. What’s missing from a reader’s standpoint is a little harder for me to figure out, since I know exactly what I meant.
“Ian’s Dad’s Ashes”. So basically I thought it would be interesting to get feedback on these flash fiction challenges, because I can’t tell if they’re crap or not, so I started posting them on OWW. Two crits – my favorite comment is “at least it has a plot.”
Knitting
Morrigan. 140 rows of 1st sleeve. That’s about 2/3.
Convertible-a-Go-Go Socks. Fin.
Naiad/Slayer. Barely started.
Avalon armwarmers. Fin.
“Quinn”. Page-a-day, started June 1. On the 13th, I woke up and realized how the story was actually supposed to go, so I had 12 pages of rambling fishhead. I finished with 19 pages.
“Doll Heads”. One of them there flash fiction challenges, wrote 1700 words June 5 (Sunday).
“Axilism”. 1300 words, another flash fiction challenge. I wanted to write about 800 words this time, first draft, because I always wind up with 70% extra on these challenges. I didn’t meet my target, though the challenge didn’t actually have a word limit this time. I wrote it Wednesday morning at work.
“Familiar”. Weekly flash fiction challenge. Wrote about 2600 words on Monday. Why is it these 1000-word things always come out so long?
Steampunk Superhero. Weekly flash fiction challenge based on a true story, came in at 950 words! Wrote it on Saturday, typed it on Sunday.
“Fairfax”. Page-a-day, I might have just accidentally started a novel. I have at least 10,000 words plotted out, anyway. I’ll probably read some books for research for this guy in the coming weeks. Right now, it’s caught my imagination, and I’d love to keep the energy well into the middle. . .
Editing
"The Rabbits". Completely changed the hidden character because the way I was trying to write it wasn’t working. This was really part of the fourth draft that I started in May.
“Dowsing”. Changed the POV and added some logic to the worldbuilding, which made the ending work.
“Chickpea”. Typed – came in just shy of 4000 words.
“Take Down the Lot of You”. Chuck Wendig challenge – started with 1700 words that I needed to get down to 1000, and also make the story make sense. Not sure it was entirely successful, but whatever.
“Doll Heads”. Typed June 6. Draft 2 June 6 (Monday), Draft 3 June 8 (Wednesday), Draft 4 June 9 (Thursday) and posted. I had to do a bit of research on this one – puritans, waterwheels...
“Axilism”. Since I wrote it on Wednesday morning, I only had one day to let it “age” before I had to revise it and post it. It got longer by a couple of hundred words in the editing, but that’s because I decided I really needed to say who the characters were.
“Familiar”. I’d sat down at the kitchen table and wrote to the end, then wrote a beginning because otherwise it made no sense. I typed it with the beginning first, Tuesday. Wednesday I removed almost 1000 words and revised the ending. Thursday I got rid of the outstanding 650 words and posted the story.
“Steampunk Superhero”. Opened the file, just couldn’t work on it on Monday. I wasn’t ready, I guess. But that night I went to sleep thinking about the main character’s steampunk superpower. Once I had that...
Ignoring
“Succubus”. Short story; working on 2nd draft
Troll.
Pampelmouse. I was out for my weekly run in Brookbanks park, and there were three red birds. I thought to myself, how odd to see three cardinals all together, and all male. Then I looked a little closer, and realized they were not cardinals (I’m not ruling out the possibility that they were juveniles or something, I know nothing about birds really – but they didn’t have what I think of as Cardinal color or beak). Some kind of parakeet maybe? They must have escaped or been liberated. Pampelmouse is coming true, which I guess is a sign that I should work on it.
“Imp Face”. Needs to be typed.
Pause.
Being reviewed
Apophis. (on OWW – two crits from April... one liked it, one hated it) Third crit in May, didn’t seem to hate it.
“Karate Zombies”. Lent my printout to a friend who kept asking to read it. It’s really hard to hand someone something you know is partly flawed, without telling them all the flaws you know are there. He went on holiday to Belgrade (bastard! I want to go to the Tesla museum!) so he had it for several weeks. He came back, and he told me basically the best compliment you can say to a writer – he liked the voice. And not to wreck it, because right now it sounded like me, he could hear my voice, and that’s what made it good. I was so happy! He also mentioned a few things, like some of the transitional elements lacked information, and everything goes along for a while and then all of a sudden there are zombies (which goes along with an idea I already had that I need to make it clear that this is a zombie novel from chapter 1, not chapter 7 like it is now). Steven did a couple of things that constitute a good crit – he gave positive feedback in addition to negative (and not just that he’d gotten all the way to the end) and also, what was missing. It’s really easy to comment on what’s there. What’s missing from a reader’s standpoint is a little harder for me to figure out, since I know exactly what I meant.
“Ian’s Dad’s Ashes”. So basically I thought it would be interesting to get feedback on these flash fiction challenges, because I can’t tell if they’re crap or not, so I started posting them on OWW. Two crits – my favorite comment is “at least it has a plot.”
Knitting
Morrigan. 140 rows of 1st sleeve. That’s about 2/3.
Convertible-a-Go-Go Socks. Fin.
Naiad/Slayer. Barely started.
Avalon armwarmers. Fin.