… oh take me back to the start.
Sorry I could not resist. This months WriYe blog topic is all about beginnings. Now this was something I had already thought about this week, when I filled out the Publish and Thrive pre-course workbook. It’s not an altogether happy tale but there is a singular theme – endurance.
Continue readingOk so since I last rambled (Day 17) I have taken six zero days. I felt really unwell this past week which sucked.
Anyway last I talked Gentlemen of Blood I speculated that it would be approximately 20-25k. In the end it was around 33k but hey that still wasn’t the 50k I’d cynically thought it could be when I first started writing.
I finished it today! 🙂 🙂 and so I’m ¾ on finishing the WIPs I picked out for this month. It was always incredibly ambitious listing those four projects and I knew it was unrealistic that I would finish all of them. I’m a bit bummed that I only have tomorrow, this month, to work on my novel but that’s because of the zero days. If I hadn’t felt so unwell this past week I’d have finished Gentlemen of Blood last week as planned and had a whole week on my novel. Alas…
So what are my upcoming plans? Well I now have three completed Sanctuary fics (Life Without Purpose, The Tragic Tail and Gentlemen of Blood). Life Without Purpose is a short 2k job that I can post whenever, the other two are multi-chapter fics and still need graphics. With The Librarians prompt month I posted a fair bit this month so I think I’ll wait until next Friday before I start posting. I probably have enough chapters across the stories to post every Tuesday and Friday for all of August.
That leaves me time to write something else! My first priority is completing my languishing novel as that’s the WIP I didn’t complete this month. After that I have two Sanctuary fics on the list: Time Will Tell (soulmate AU) and Shadow Play(season 4 colouring between the lines). I’m currently thinking once I’ve finished the novel I’ll write Time Will Tell next as that’s what I’m most interested in. At the same time I can plan my next novel. I have August, September and October to finish my current novel, plan the next one, and write fic because come November I’ll be doing a new novel for NaNo.
I also want to finish the languishing gifset. You know the artistic one that’s a complete love letter to my OT3 and taking forever. Plus I have a list of 50+ other gifsets I could do. I signed up for a drawing course I’ve not started. I made it a goal to do a drawing a month and haven’t done one since March. So yeah I’d say I can fill the next three months pretty easily.
I’m 273 words off having written 300k this year. That’s a little ahead of pace for 500k and I’ve decided that’s what I’m going to aim for. If I keep on current pace that should be easily doable. Which means I think I’m at least one project short to add up for another 200k, I’ll have to think on it hehe.
Words Written (this month): 54,593
Final Total (for Gentlemen of Blood): 33,326 (well pre-proofing anyway)
I hate feeling unwell.
I want to do things. I feel behind because I’m not doing them but damn I just can’t 🙁
In which there are things I should have done… which I have not done.
#story of my life#big mood#I’m hacked off with myself again so what else is new#ignore me
What it says on the tin aka this month’s WriYe blog topic. I didn’t do last months because it was on balance and hahahahaha I do not have any. Seriously none, zip, nada, no freaking clue. Anyway, I thought I would give this one a stab. I also thought I would try and go for a bit more of the “weird and wacky” rather than the standard. As I read Kandy’s post this morning, which expertly covered everything I would otherwise have said, and I felt like I should at least make an attempt to be different.
So without ado!
Tip #1 – Trackers are your friend
I get down on myself all the time and my brain likes to lie to me. So have some concrete evidence. Now this can go horribly wrong as that evidence can be twisted into a weapon BUT facts are facts. It’s like glass half full, glass half empty, but at least you know for sure how much is inside. So record how many days you write for, record how much you write, go further and time yourself if you’d like. That way when the brain lies and says “you haven’t written in forever and you suck” you can go “nope actually I wrote for 20 days this month” (or whatever the truth is) and that’s better than nothing. Progress may be slower than you’d like, but the progress is still there and it is measurable.
Tip #2 – Don’t fight fate
Kinda ties in with the “track everything” idea, in that patterns will emerge! I know, I super love patterns too. They are very cool except when they are harmful, and I have a pattern that hurts me. Inevitable due to, shall we say life events, I often have a week or so in the month where my head is just not in the game. I get so mad at myself and I’m all “you were doing good, what the hell is wrong with you!?!?” but through tracking I realised the correlation. Now it still irritates the hell out of me but I’m a bit less mad now as I know why. There are things in life we can’t change. If the words aren’t coming, there’s probably a reason for that and that reason might be out of your control. So for instance if you are trying to write and getting frustrated on Sunday’s, then maybe that’s a day you skip. Save yourself the aggro. Less frustration hopefully equals more productivity on days without those issues.
I swear the more fanfic I write, the more Nikola emerges as the supportive friend. That tag I said I should add to The Tragic Tail of ‘Nikola is a good friend’ should perhaps be appended to all my work going forward.
There’s no two ways about it. Nikola is family. Love language right. Nikola snarks, is insulting, gives people nicknames and flirts (with Helen). People that don’t know him would hear all that and think he was rude/inappropriate at best but I think that’s part of how he shows his friendship. It’s banter and it’s probably also part defence mechanism. Besides if there was any doubt Nikola’s actions speak volumes. Whenever they need him, he’s there.
He’ll always pretend like he isn’t really doing anything, he’d deny he was helping if anyone said anything, play it off with a quip probably or imply he has selfish motives. Really though it is because he cares deeply about his friends. If Nikola’s megalomania comes up in my fics I usually try and work in my headcanon, that he only wants to take over the world to make it better, because he’s frustrated that he can see the problems and nobody is doing anything. Nikola has a big heart.
I just love him your honour.
So I really didn’t want to write today. It was one of those days when I could very easily have said ‘screw it’ and taken a zero. I think my brain was rebelling because I just wrote 15k in the last 4 days, and finished a story.
Buuuuuut it was 5k weekend so thankfully that was all the incentive I needed to get down another 2.6k. The Five just had their fight with Worth, literally just ended, and so I need to wrap up the scene and deal with the immediate aftermath. Then we’re into ‘feelings’ territory as Worth’s rage and split personality start James thinking…
It’s still 5k weekend tomorrow so I need to do another 2.5k+ to win. Which is making it look really good for finishing this story hopefully by the middle of next week.
Tomorrow I’m dropping the whole of and the Sins of Atlantis on AO3. I’ve had a couple of really nice comments on my teasers, and I’m so grateful, but also a little concerned that the actual fic may be a disappointment. It’s going to be niche. I mean it’s a crossover fic to start with, and then there’s the rare ship (my beloved OT3) AND even worse a separate OC pairing. I tried to resist, because I know OC’s are pretty hated but I just couldn’t, I had headcanons.
So yeah #1 mission tomorrow is not getting distracted wondering if people hate it. Just post it and then go back to writing the next fic. Famous last words.
Words Written (this month): 39,562
Current Total (for Gentlemen of Blood): 18,282
Yes that is right and the Sins of Atlantis is now finally finished. I’m still in that “OMG I can’t believe I reached the end” state because really it’s been a journey. It’s even longer than I anticipated and I had cynically thought it might reach 50k. Whenever I start a long fic, that’s never my intention. However, estimating story length is a bit like “how long is a piece of string?” it’s just however long it turns out.
I haven’t broken it into chapters yet. Proofing it and breaking it into chapters is a tomorrow job. Also I will be picking Gentlemen of Blood back up as it’s 5k weekend on WriYe so no rest for the wicked, I need to keep typing!
Words Written (this month): 36,949
Final Total (for and the Sins of Atlantis): 58,561 (well pre-proofing anyway)
I made a big push with Gentlemen of Blood at the end of June, as I was writing this fic for the WriYe challenge. So if all goes well I might finish this one early next week. I had cynically thought this might also be a 50k job but I’m now thinking more 20-25k. That leaves the rest of the month to go back and crack on with my original novel that has been languishing since May.
I said that July was going to be the month of finishing things, and thus far I’m 2/4 on the list I made. For once I’m actually doing as intended. Long may it continue!
Current Total (for Gentlemen of Blood): 15,667
#have I ever slammed reblog that fast?#I mean this show gave me back writing I was having panic attacks everytime I tried to write and the love of this show got me out of that#Sanctuary just inspires me I haven’t been this obsessed with something in years and it’s a good feeling#I am so very grateful
Ok tentative fic plan!
If all continues to go well I should finish writing and the Sins of Atlantis tomorrow or Friday (probably Friday). So I’m thinking, presuming I can proof it in time, that I’ll post on Sunday. I’m dropping the whole thing at once rather than post every Tuesday and Friday like I normally do.
After Sunday (Day #18) looking at the remaining prompts for prompt month. Day #22, #24, #28 and #30 are all covered in and the Sins of Atlantis. So ignoring those.
Day #21 (so next Wednesday) was covered in the fic I posted for Day #10 (and the Brighter Side of Life). I’ll be posting and the Outsiders for Day #23 (next Friday) and for Day #26 (Monday after next) I’ll post and the Inevitable Conflict. Which means the only thing left is the gifset I’m considering making for Day #25. I have no plans for the remaining 5 prompts.
This will mean I’ll have posted something for 18/31 prompts (if I make that gifset) which isn’t bad going. As that’s seriously confusing and far too much like math that means I’ll be posting fic:
– This coming Sunday
– Next Wednesday
– Monday 26th
I’ve posted 3 fics this month already. I also have two other fics written that I haven’t posted yet. Both of them for Sanctuary (The Tragic Tail and Life Without Purpose). They are both waiting for graphics before I can post them.
The day after I finish writing and the Sins of Atlantis I’ll be going back to Gentlemen of Blood. Looking at the time frame, and what I have in hand, regardless of when I finish Gentlemen of Blood, I don’t think I’ll start posting until sometime next month.
So far so good on my “finish all the things” plan for July! In a couple of days I’ll be at 2/4 on the list 🙂