Words & Wonders (28)

Welcome to Words & Wonders, a weekly journal of writing updates, links I've found useful or interesting, and book recommendations. I hope W&W will prove to be useful to you writers out there as well as offering an insight into my writing progress for my readers. Don't forget to leave a comment with your own writing progress!

In the Writing Cave, this week I have:

- Written 6,147 words of PERSEYUA, my Nanowrimo novel-in-verse. I had a bad week. I'm officially in the middle of this book though!!!! It's looking like it might be a little over my predicted word count but that's easily fixable, since I've rambled a lot in parts :)

In my life:

- I've had a very bad week, not just writing wise but health wise. Sleep is shitty, mood is shitty, and my eye is constantly twitching. If you have a trick to stop eyes twitching, TELL ME AND SAVE ME.

On the internet, this week I found useful:

- Rise of The Gender Novel
- This whole twitter conversation on cis authors writing trans characters
- Love Lists, by Stephanie Perkins (this is a great idea and I'll 100% be doing this)
- Expanding Your Word Count
- This Isn't Complicated At All
(not writing advice but well worth the read for all involved in writing & publishing books)
- Opinion: Do We Honour Girls? (another must read)

What have you written this week?
~Saruuh

Words & Wonders (27)

Welcome to Words & Wonders, a weekly journal of writing updates, links I've found useful or interesting, and book recommendations. I hope W&W will prove to be useful to you writers out there as well as offering an insight into my writing progress for my readers. Don't forget to leave a comment with your own writing progress!

In the Writing Cave, this week I have:

- Written 15,352 words of PERSEYUA, my Nanowrimo novel-in-verse. And because I've only posted one snippet from this book, and it's been a loooooong while, here's an unedited stanza.

In my life:

- I've got to the part in my book where I'm slogging through a very deep bog that's made of quicksand instead of mud.

On the internet, this week I found useful:

- Actions Speak Louder Than Dialogue Tags
- 3 Tips For Nanowrimo Success, An Agent's Perspective

What have you written this week?
~Saruuh

Writing Everyday, a post on perseverance.

I think this is probably my first real post about writing on WFS, possibly ever. Usually I'd chicken out before posting, since I'm not exactly the best authority on writing and very few people will be familiar with the books I've written, but what the heck - it's Nanowrimo, why not?

In the last 3 months I've written 130,000 words. A whole 130K, and I was pretty darn shocked when I looked back and made that calculation. I have been writing a lot, but I didn't think it was that much, and for a while I couldn't work out why. And then it clicked - that bit of writing advice I'd seen from dozen of authors, the one that says writing everyday is essential, is actually true. And to think I'd scorned it, because I'd been writing for the past few years and had never written more than 25K in a month. I thought it was the age old thing - one man's advice is another man's nightmare. I assumed it was just one of those things that only work for some people. Nope. Nu-uh.

The thing with writing everyday, I've found out, is it takes time. You can write everyday for a month (Nanowrimo, anyone?) and produce a tonne of words, and slack off and write only a couple thousand the next month. You have to keep up the writing everyday, week after week, month after month. Writing everyday is a HUGE commitment, but it really does, eventually, pay off. It's taken me months of full time, everyday writing for it to kick in and for the words to come at the rate all those writing advice posts promised.

I say I write every day ... but I do take a few days off. I've found if I force myself to write on days where it feels like pulling teeth it just doesn't happen at all. My mood suffers, my writing is horrendous, it all goes to crap. But overall, looking at the overview of the month, I write 80-90% of the time. Maybe three or four days off, but those other twenty seven days? Racking those up, month after month, really really works. It just takes time, for the routine to settle. Maybe at the beginning you'll write 200 words a day. Maybe by the end you'll write 5,000. I've gone from taking 5 or 6 months to write a 100K+ novel to taking half that time.

So keep at it. I bet at some point it'll all kick in for you too, and you'll look back and be like 'I wrote HOW many words?'

~Saruuh

(Keeping track of progress on a spreadsheet is pretty great for this, as it lets you see your progress at a glance. Maybe at some point I'll write a post about my spreadsheet set up!)

Words & Wonders (26)

Welcome to Words & Wonders, a weekly journal of writing updates, links I've found useful or interesting, and book recommendations. I hope W&W will prove to be useful to you writers out there as well as offering an insight into my writing progress for my readers. Don't forget to leave a comment with your own writing progress!

In the Writing Cave, this week I have:

- Written 11,001 words of PERSEYUA, my Nanowrimo novel-in-verse. I've settled into writing this book now, but I still had a pretty crappy two days and got nothing done.

In my life:

- Tipping between feeling totally awesome and REALLY KINDA STRESSED about writing this book. I'm sure building my agents spreadsheet and writing queries and thinking too far ahead isn't helping.

On the internet, this week I found useful:

- This post on voice by Kody Keplinger.
- This post on theme by Chuck Wendig. (which I 100% knew nothing about before reading this) (also warnings for swears and references to sexual acts.)

What have you written this week?
~Saruuh

Words & Wonders (25)

Welcome to Words & Wonders, a weekly journal of writing updates, links I've found useful or interesting, and book recommendations. I hope W&W will prove to be useful to you writers out there as well as offering an insight into my writing progress for my readers. Don't forget to leave a comment with your own writing progress!

25th W&W!! Feels monumental.

In the Writing Cave, this week I have:

- Written 11,543 words of PERSEYUA, my Nanowrimo novel-in-verse. It's is WAY slower to write free verse than prose, and it's taking me three times as long to write 1,000 words than usual, even accepting everything technical about it is going to be terrible D: (not great considering I want to write a full 50,000 this month!!!) But I love the characters and the story so I'm pushing on.

- Prepped my Ghastly story, now called Wicked Song, for second drafting.

- Prepped a story about selkies I wrote last year for second drafting + entirely replotted because it needs an complete, extensive rewrite.

In my life:

- I have no time to read blog posts and keep up with what everyone's been posting, which I'm sad about, but that's the price of writing a novel in two months.

On the internet, this week I found useful:

- No time for reading blogs this week :(

What have you written this week?
~Saruuh