ECLECTIC PROJECTS BLOG

Context: Solid writing sessions this morning, charging towards the end of a specific scene. Stuck now, ’cause there’s a multiplicity of things that could come next, and they all seem to be leading me off into an expansive approach to the narrative that’ll lead me into writing a novel. I am not writing a novel. Which is why I spent 51 minutes messing around with the opening part of the next scene and wrote pretty much nothing; I’m about to engage the Kress protocol and go back into the previous scene to chance something and see how if affects the narrative. I need to be bounced off into a new direction. Session 22.1 (7:56 AM – 8:24 AM) Word Count: 610 Session 22.2 (8:36 AM – 8:50 AM) Word Count: 385 Session 22.3 (8:03 PM – 8:54 PM) Word Count: 191 Total Daily Writing Time: 1 hour, 33 minutes Daily Word Count Total: 1,186 Total Manuscript Writing Time: 22 hours, 4 minutes Total Manuscript Word Count: 17,458

Novella Diary, Claw, Day Twenty-One So last night I stayed up late, writing a moderately detail plan for the scene I wanted to get done this morning. It was a pretty good plan. Laid out a lot of stuff. This morning I woke up and wrote a completely difference scene. Potentially invalidating all the stuff I’d planned. This is why I’m not, by inclination or any real practical process, a plotter. Session 21.1 (7:18: AM -7:28 AM) Word Count: 107 Session 21.2 (8:03 AM -8:23 AM) Word Count: 470 Session 21.3 (8:35 AM – 8:57 AM) Word Count: 542 Total Daily Writing Time: 52 minutes Daily Word Count Total: 1,119 Total Manuscript Writing Time: 20 hours, 31 minutes Total Manuscript Word Count: 16,283

Write club. Which, if you’ve been following this diary for a stretch, should give you some context for what’s about to happen. I spent the first hour catching up with Angela and hearing all the latest from the Aurealis Awards in Sydney, and the second stretch finishing up my WQ article in preparation for submitting it later tonight. With that done, it’s time to dig into some words. Session 20.1 (12:50 PM – 1:12 PM ) Word Count: 275 Session 20.2 (1:28 PM – 1:37 PM) Word Count: 296 Session 20.3 (8:48 PM – 9:33 PM) Word Count: 599 So, none of that went terribly well. This represents tree attempts at the same scene. Finally seem to have hit it, albeit not in a form that I’m happy with. Taking a short break before returning and trying to clock up another four hundred words, just so I can get back into the 1k a day habit. Session 20.4 (9:49 PM – 10:07 PM) Word Count: 420 ______________ Total Daily Writing Time: 1 hour, 34 minutes Daily Word Count Total: 1, 590 Total Manuscript Writing Time: 19 hours, 39 minutes Total Manuscript Word Count: 15,180

So I wrote a long post this morning, all of which seems to have vanished into the ether when I failed to save the diary update after entering the first writing session of the day. I’m slightly irritated by this, since it means I’m going to be going from memory when it comes to working out today’s writing time, and I’ve done so much cutting on the manuscript that I no longer have a solid gauge of today’s word count. Session 15.1 and 15.2 So, from memory, session one and two were about a half-hour long and involved writing about 600 words apeice based upon my best guess (and a quick word-count of the scene that only started this morning). I then cut about 3,500 words from the manuscript ’cause they were part of a first chapter that no longer really applies. Some of them may find their way back in again. Session 15.2 (8:21 PM – 8:56 PM) Word Count: 630 Total Daily Writing Time: 1 hour  25 minutes (approx) Daily Word Count Total: 1, 830 (approx) Total Manuscript Writing Time: 17 hours, 41 minutes Total Manuscript Word Count: 14,917

Today I tried to open up a web browser on Odin the Desktop about thirty seconds after I sat down. Disappointing, really, since I’d almost broken myself of that habit (I still wanted too, but I usually remembered that Odin is internet-free and therefore not much good for web browsing). One of the interesting parts about doing this diary is seeing how my process actually works. It’s an inexact science – logging word-counts doesn’t really tell me much about the content or how many times a scene gets rewritten – but it’s already proving informative. For instance, I would have spent years telling people I was a get it done kind of writer, at my best when I just sat down and slogged my way through a manuscript for hours at a time. At the start of this year I actually set up my workflow around that assumption, sitting down to hit set word-counts every day (they varied from day-to-day; I’ll probably post about this once the novella is done). And while that worked for…hmm, maybe 2/3 of a month, on average…it seems like a disaster given what I’m learning here. I write, on average, for twenty to thirty minutes. I can get a whole lot done in less time than that. Even when I give the illusion of sitting down for an hour straight, I’m usually just stringing along a series of shorter increments with some breaks where my brain just goes on spin-cycle for a stretch. How have

So I didn’t get online a lot between Friday and Sunday, for a whole variety of reasons, so this is going to be a pretty truncated entry that covers the last four days. Strap yourselves in. Day 10 Things I did today: woke up on the Gold Coast and had breakfast with my parents; drove to Brisbane and worked for a few hours in the QWC office; had lunch with co-workers; came home and went through a couple of options for the Tooth and Claw Whispers reading on Saturday; do some prep work for the next Year of the Author Platform course I’m teaching in a few weeks; watched NXT with the Flatmate. Things I didn’t do today: write anything on the novella. Total Daily Writing Time: 0 Daily Word Count Total: 0 Day 11 Session 11.1 (11:43 PM – 12:28 AM) Word Count: 600  Mostly revision on the first chapter.  Trying to streamline things a bit. Total Daily Writing Time: 45 minutes Daily Word Count Total: 600 Day 12 Session 12.1 (12: 38 AM – 1:08 AM) Word Count: 547 Taking my “get work done early, so you can slack off a little later in the day” habit to its logical extreme. Most of this came from doing rewrites of the first scene, and I figured I’d squeeze a few couple of minutes in ’cause I wasn’t actually sleeping all that well and Sunday…well, Sunday was looking like it’d be a write-off. Which, turns out, it was. Rather grateful I got this done when

I hate this chapter. I hate this book. I hate this blog series and wish I’d never started it. I hate the mornings. I hate the fact that I have to the Gold Coast this evening. I hate the fact that there is so much of the book left to go. I hate the fact that it’s getting longer. I hate the fact that I’m not able to just finish this fucker and go on to the next thing. I hate the fact that I didn’t finish my PhD. I hate the fact that I’m behind on pretty much everything at my day-job. I hate the fact that I slept badly and woke up late. I hate the fact that I’m already behind. I hate…I hate…I hate… And really, all that happens more or less on time. Nine days in and this is no longer fun. Must ignore that and keep writing. Session 9.1 (8:15 AM – 8:49 PM) Word Count: 749 I’m laying good odds that this will be it today. Packed day at work, which means it’s unlikely I’ll steal time at lunch. Drive to the Gold Coast in the rush-hour traffic. Hit the awards dinner for the Josephine Ulrick awards as the QWC representative. Eat. Drink. Be merry. Head to my parents place. Sleep. Session 9.2 (12:11 PM – 12:23 PM) Word Count: 297 Against all odds, I finished lunch with twelve minutes to spare. Bam. Writing time. Wrote enough that I can see the shape of