#draftdash

New blog post is up! This will serve as my wrap-up post for @draftdash and talks about what I actually learning from writing 15 minutes each day in January.

As I mentioned, I am participating in DraftDash and a Word Crawl. Both are going okay. I feel like I'm cheating since I already write (or at least try to) daily. It's hard to track progress when word count isn't the goal. So far it's 3000+ for the prequel to When Sins Haunt and ~300 for Blackwater. I hate that planning is easier than writing.

Blackwater Scene 2 from Chapter 32 has a skeleton now. Hoping to flesh it out so I can share something next time. The problem is everything in Ch 32 is a Major Spoiler™ so I have to decide how to navigate that.

Untitled Prequel (I really need a title...) Turns out I can't write a simple story. This one is shaping up to be a dual timeline set in the 1870s covering two mysteries. Half involves Charlotte getting caught up in a wild west murder mystery. The other half reveals how she, a supposedly dead New York socialite, ended up in Fort Worth.

I flip-flop between "no one will ever read this" and "no, no, it totally works! Charlotte's fall from grace and the murders mirror one another as do the characters! Not to mention the themes tie together and..."

I’m back with a vengeance (not really), and also 321 newly written words! Could’ve probably gotten more in, but I had to reference a couple things from earlier passages just cause lol

again, I’m writing some moments of emotional tension! my MC had to confront the reality of her stupid but necessary decision, something that made everyone else annoyed at her. also, I’m getting close to 21k total!

Doing this challenge has made me realize how little time I probably spend writing during Nanowrimo (usually about 14k…) which for me is maybe 1 or 2 15-minute sprints per day?? Moral of the story for me: do more sprints!!

Another evening sprint with the Discord sprint bot, wrote 421 words and I got to Level 3 on the bot :D Like I'm pretty motivated to do this every day already, but adding a level of gamification where you get XP and level up is a cherry on top.

I was gone yesterday because my computer was getting repaired! But I still wrote! (Yay notebooks!)

Day 10: 733 words

Day 11: 387 words

Another late day due to time with friends, but we did it! Spent 20 mins and got 489 words down.

Starting to get down Abigail's characterization and while I'll definitely have to go back and tweak things depending on how events pan out, I'm liking it :D Also, that sweet sweet worldbuilding is getting on the page

Time: 25 min

About: Elia's backstory

Favourite quote:

William sorrise, dolce quanto una meringa alla fragola, «Ne sono onorato»

//

William smiled, sweet like strawberry meringue, «I'm honored»

Notes: I basically called him fruity (it's funny because he is lmao)

time spent: 30 mins approximate. overall mood: pikachu face. music: persona 4 chill/study mix. written lines i liked: Azure blue that burns almost as bright as fire. / She was never meant to rule.

happy new years!!! may 2024 be fruitful and kinder than last year.

i worked on The Eyes That Haunt / The Ghost That Bleeds (otherwise known as prophecy fic from now onwards). prophecy fic has two parts (just decided to split it into two lol):

A; the eyes that haunt

B; the ghost that bleeds

i started the timer and spent a few minutes just staring at the screen. i haven't written in a long time, so i was struggling with how to write the starting line. or, really, what to write as a whole. it was like... trying to move a sliding door. but the wheels had rusted. so the sliding was less sliding and more janky yanking.

i had a plan drafted but i immediately blanked out. but the timer was ticking by, so i just wrote down whatever was in my head instead of looking at the plan (only glanced at it once or twice to see if my rambling was on track).

but once i started, it flowed. kind of. a lot of scenes came to mind that weren't necessarily in the plan. but i wrote it out anyway for future editing. and i would just write small snippets because i was still struggling with the opening / first section of A. so, i managed to write bits of A and B. while writing, i checked the timer and was super surprised that i didn't notice it ended??? i think i didn't notice because the timer's noise was hidden underneath the music.