Big Writing Weekend

Posted by Jen on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 @ 9:06 am

Hope everyone had a great Father’s Day weekend, even if the weather wasn’t particularly great. I’m ready for warmth and plenty of sunshine.

So, I got a lot of writing done this weekend.

I’d been feeling a little stuck all week after hitting 40k. I really don’t know what it is about that point in the story that makes me feel overwhelmed and like everything I’ve written so far is pure crap. So, on Friday, I downloaded some writing software on a free 30-day trial. I actually want to write an entire separate post about it later, so all I’m going to say is that I love it.

I spent several hours on Friday organizing my thoughts, my ideas, the world, the characters, everything. A lot of what I knew I wanted to do with the last third of the book was up in my head, parts scribbled down in a notebook and parts scribbled down in various Word files. It felt good to get it all organized.

I have this thing about organization. If the desk where I work is cluttered, I cannot concentrate enough to get anything done. I actually have a lot of things on my desk, but every single thing has a spot and is exactly where I want it to be. My post-its have a spot. My Wolverine glass has a spot. My coffee cup has a spot. And if there are things on my desk that are not supposed to be there, they must be moved.

Anyway, after my day of organizing, I was able to pound out 5k words that night. Then, yesterday, I wrote 8k more words. I was on a roll, in the zone, whatever you want to call it. I don’t think I’ll be able to write that many words in a day again anytime soon.

So, I’m estimating about 15k more words to go until The End. And while I’m feeling very excited about finishing this book, I’m also a little sad about it being over soon. I’ve really loved writing it. At least I’ll have revisions!

BONE DRY: First Draft
53,263 / 70,000 Words (76.00%)

Comments

By Andrew on June 22nd, 2009 at 5:18 pm

That is some serious output there. Wish I could manage days like that…

By Diana Peterfreund on June 22nd, 2009 at 9:24 pm

Me too! My standard output is 2k.

Is it Scrivener? There are things I love about Scrivener, but I’ll never be a convert, because I can’t deal with the lack of page count.

By Jen on June 23rd, 2009 at 9:15 am

Thanks guys! I normally can’t write more than 3k in a day.

Diana - I don’t have a Mac or I’d definitely be trying out Srivener. I’m using something very similar called Liquid Story Binder for Windows. They have a lot of the same features.