Writing Report January 12, 2019
Completed my first story of the year.
Clocks in at around 7,500 words (first draft).
It’s a little more pulpish than my usual fare, but I think readers will like the slam bang action.
And it’s not completely mindless entertainment, I do have a central theme I think worth exploring.
I started this last week on Thursday, picking an idea from a list of story prompts I have.
(There’s a lot of great resources re story prompts, but I recommend @nerdgarbagebot and @MagicRealismBot on Twitter as they have a lot of good one sentence ideas. @yokoonoboy is also good, but doesn’t supply as many usable ideas as the other two.)
I’d blocked out the rough idea for the story by late Thursday night thought I didn’t actually begin writing until Friday.
Events, however, conspired against me.
I was interrupted all day Friday and Saturday (days I have blocked aside for short stories; see below for details), didn’t work on the story on Sunday, got very little opportunity to work on it Monday, and finally blitzed the last 1,200 words out just before my writers group on Tuesday.
It was, in a word, rough.
I’m polishing it up now, thanx in no small part to some good feedback from the group (they spotted problems I was already aware of, but saw them more sharply than I had and offered some good suggestions).
Anyway, I’ve finished the very first edit, will give it a while to lay fallow, then go over it one last time before launching it into the void.
(And, yes, I’m starting a new story on Friday; again, see below.)
When I started, I figured I would hit somewhere around or just under the 6,000 word mark.
I overshot, but not by much.
The story feels that it’s the right length, and barring editorial feedback, will probably go out at that length.
Once it sells (he said crossing his fingers) I’ll let you know what the prompt was, and how the story evolved from that.
I’ve plotted out my writing schedule for the entire year.
Mondays are for non-fiction
Tuesdays are for reading.
Wednesdays and Thursdays are reserved for major projects such as novels and plays (obviously it will take more than one week, perhaps more than three months, to fully complete these).
Fridays and Saturdays are for short stories (a new one each time)
Sundays are tech time: Housecleaning on the website/s, send out completed stories to various markets, etc.
Now, this isn’t a hard and fast schedule (I’ve already broken it any how) but rather a template I can return to again and again.
Unlike previous attempts at organizing my creative time, I’m not going to try to rigorously adhere to this schedule…
…but it’s there for me to return to when I need it.
(and I’ll need it, I’ll need it…).
© Buzz Dixon
