Robin / Elizabeth

From What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers, Chapter 13: Journal Keeping for Writers, by William Melvin Kelley.

Everybody has a day to write about, and so writing about the day makes everybody equal. Diary keeping separates the act of writing from creating character and plot. You can write every day and learn certain fictional techniques without having to invent fiction on command.

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Let me tell you, today was a magical writing day. I started at midnight eager as a child on Christmas morning. I wrote for an hour and somehow managed to write 1762 words. That's right, I got to my 1667 words within the first hour of NaNoWriMo starting. Granted, it was almost entirely dialog. I'll throw in the descriptions later.

November 1st Word Count: 5197 words

Total NaNoWriMo Word Count

5389 / 50000 words. 11% done!

My strength is my dialog. I've known this, and I've been trying to work on my weaknesses over the past year. When I started my 2010 New Years Resolution (which will I have failed miserably), the idea was to write daily without using dialog whatsoever. I made it into April, and when my uncle died, I lost the momentum of daily writing. Such is life, I guess.

For NaNoWriMo, I'm getting rid of my resolution approach. To hell with trying to work on my weakness! I need to get the words on the page. I can work on non-dialog details in the revision process. That's not to say I write ONLY dialog. I do throw description in from time to time. But the words POUR out when I'm dealing in dialog, as you can see from today's rather rambunctious word count.

So I'll trudge on, writing the words in my head, allowing the characters to take over (which they have already!), allowing characters to create themselves and morph my preconceived ideas of their personalities, and allowing no restriction to the quality of my writing. 50,000 words, here I come.

(Revised) Yearly Word Goal:

27963 / 100000 words. 28% done!

I'm in my last two weeks of school prior to finals week. Writing has been put aside, sadly. It's been replaced with homework, many hours in the photo lab, and intense Japanese studying. But I am getting some reading done.

Fiction pages read between May 14-20: 74

Reading Goal:

1287 / 4500 pages. 29% done!

I'm taking a grammar class this term, and one of the assignments requires that we compare the sentence structure between something we have written to a professional's writing. Since I'm reading American Gods right now, I decided to pick a page out of that book. The page I picked is the homosexual scene between an Arab and an ifrit. Mmmm, I wish I could see the look on my professor's face if he actually finds the excerpt. <3


I expect my writing will pick up when the term is over. Kevin and I are planning our own NaNoWriMo of sorts during one of the summer months in addition to a collaborative effort. Should be fun.

Well... didn't do any writing this week. Too busy with tests and projects and such. Did get some reading done...

Fiction pages read between May 7-13: 49

Reading Goal:

1213 / 4500 pages. 27% done!

That's really all to report right now.

If I was still on task, this week's goal would have been 450 words/day, 3150 words/week. I decided that I should cut my numbers in half, considering I'm still having trouble keeping up with even that. So even with 225 words/day and 1575 words/week, I'm still severely behind. I blame the fact that we're half way through the term, and taking a photography class doesn't allow for a whole lot of free time.

Also, the creative dam is closed right now. I can feel the creative juices bubbling and boiling behind said dam, but barely a trickle slipped through as I stared at my blank screen. Hell, I was even doing character diary entries, which is often pretty easy to do, and nothing was coming through. Sad days.

April 30: 0
May 1: 214
May 2: 0
May 3: 185
May 4: 197
May 5: 0
May 6: 0
Total: 596 words

Fiction pages read between April 30-May 6: 31

Weekly Writing Goal: (Oh how painful!)

596 / 1575 words. 38% done!

Daily Writing-to-Date goal:

19166 / 28350 words. 68% done!

Yearly Writing Goal:

22574 / 250000 words. 9% done!

Reading Goal:

1164 / 4500 pages. 26% done!


There's a neat little project going on over at Twitter. I'm not sure who came up with this idea, but there's a One Book, One Twitter project going on. People chose to read American Gods by Neil Gaiman (there was a vote somewhere), which is a book I began reading about a year or two ago but never got around to finishing (probably because Kevin told me to start reading grrm's series). So I picked it up again, have been reading it aloud to Kevin. It's actually pretty fun to do. Even though I haven't jumped into the discussion part of the project (I'm actually out-of-town right now), it's still fun to think that I'm reading a novel with a large number (thousands) of people from all over the world.

Even if you're not a twitter user, you might consider participating anyway. :)

Slowly getting back into the groove. Not quite up to speed yet, but at least I'm getting some writing done. This week's goal was 425 words/day, 2975 for the week. Didn't happen, but eh, I'll work harder next week.

April 23: 0
April 24: 0
April 25: 0
April 26: 1271
April 27: 144
April 28: 110
April 29: 0
Total: 1525 words

Fiction pages read between April 23-29: 35

Weekly Writing Goal:

1525 / 2975 words. 51% done!

Daily Writing-to-Date goal:

18570 / 26775 words. 69% done!

Yearly Writing Goal:

21778 / 250000 words. 9% done!

Reading Goal:

1133 / 4500 pages. 25% done!


I've been writing random scenes that have been drifting around in my head which will supposedly end up in my novel. I find that my mind's eye is too focused on every single little eye movement and muscle spasm my characters do. Eyes especially.

"She stared, she glared, she glanced down, she bowed her head, she watched her feet."

Okay, holding on a little too tight!! Need to loosen up a bit, and not be so focused on body placement. Readers don't care that her hand scratches an inch at her elbow -- unless it is gonna form some great grotesque thing that will eventually kill her. -_-;; Bleh.

Today is the beginning of week 17. I have not written any words between Week 14 and 16. I wrote only two days during week 13, which the goal was 325 words a day. Anyway, here's all the up-to-date information.

March 26: 0
March 27: 0
March 28: 675
March 29: 202
March 30: 0
March 31: 0
April 1: 0
Total: 877 words

Fiction pages read between March 26 to April 18: 458

Weekly Writing Goal:

877 / 2275 words. 39% done!

Daily Writing-to-Date goal: (As of today)

17045 / 23800 words. 72% done!

Yearly Writing Goal:

20253 / 250000 words. 8% done!

Reading Goal:

1098 / 4500 pages. 24% done!


I gotta admit, seeing all that white space on those bars is definitely motivation to get at it again.

I find that I have the desire to write, but because I've been neglecting it, I've once again become intimidated. The daily word count is high now, and I'm allowing it to control me. I should know that I don't HAVE to write 500 words a day, but I'll feel guilty if I don't. I need a singular project to write on, but I don't do fanfics and I have nearly no ideas for a stand-alone short story. I have one story I could do a lot of editing on, but the amount of work it needs is also turning me off.

It's weird how something I am so passionate toward can also frighten me at the same time. @_@


Here's my updated reading on fiction. I'll be adding textbook pages to that eventually, probably after the quarter is done. I finally finished the first book I was working on -- grrm's A Storm of Swords. The book is 1128 pages long and lags in a lot of areas. I have one more book out of his series to read, but I'm going to hold off on it. I need to read shorter books that don't take me 4 months to get through. =B

Reading Goal:

1098 / 4500 words. 24% done!


My classes this quarter include English Grammar and English Linguistics. Both classes, though easy, are enjoyable. I definitely will be able to utilize them in my writing -- which is the whole point of taking them.

Okay self, let's get back to writing this week. No excuses. *shakes fist at self*

I haven't updated in a while due to several factors:

1. I went to my uncle's funeral in KS. It was sudden and unexpected.
2. Classes have started.
3. I've gotten out of my groove.

I'm hoping to get back on track with my writing soon. I have a couple of weeks without writing, but week 13 did have some writing, so eventually I'll post those stats. Probably this weekend sometime.

Guess that's it for now.

This week's goal was 300 words a day, 2100 words total.

March 19: 331
March 20: 173
March 21: 1520 (Thanks to unicornhime for word war.)
March 22: 300
March 23: 55
March 24: 0
March 25: 221
Total: 2600 words

Reading total: 35 pages

Weekly Writing Goal:

2600 / 2100 words. 124% done!

Daily Writing-to-Date goal: (Essay writing taken out)

16168 / 13650 words. 118% done!

Yearly Writing Goal:

19376 / 250000 words. 8% done!

Reading goal:

640 / 4500 words. 14% done!


Family issues have come up. I doubt I'll be getting a lot of writing done while I'm out of town. We'll see.

Want to start working on a project now that my word count is increasing. I find that as the word count increases, I'm struggling. I got used to the really small word counts, and so when I write 100 words I'm thinking, "Oh man, I still have another 200 words to go? But I said all I need to say." Dangerous.

I figure if I give myself an ongoing project, like a fanfic or something, that I will be more productive. Unfortunately, nothing is coming to mind.

In the meantime, I'm writing journal entries for each of my novel characters. It's kind of fun. I should make them fill out memes. ... Hmm...


I bought myself a really nice feeling blank notebook the other day. It has a great.. I dunno, bend? to it. Plus the cover is pretty and has a really nice texture. I'm not really sure what I want to use it for yet. Writing of some kind. But what?????? I already have two notebooks dedicated to The Novel. I must make use of this stupidly expensive notebook for something. Any ideas?