Are You Writing? Week of 10.23.17
Posted by David Duhr in 
Welcome to a fresh new “Are You Writing?”
What are your literary goals for this week? (Writing, editing, reading, whatever.) If you want and/or need a little public accountability, share them in the comments.
Did you reach the goals you set here last week? If so, bust out and do a little bragging!
And if not, what kind of roadblocks did you come across, and how will you bust through ’em this week?
Teresa, did you make progress on two of your three WIPs? (WsIP?) Alia, did you start that fourth revision? Let us know!
I have several writing goals for this week as follows:
Complete a revised draft of chapters 5&6 of my novel
Contact Thomas Andes regarding a blog for my new company – Just Write Resources LLC
Visualize the concept, steps needed and timeline for my blog to go live
I realize that 2 and 3 are not tangible writing goals, but getting these in place will greatly assist with my writing/business process
Joan
Sounds good, Joan. Thanks for sharing! We always say that anything that fosters and/or lays a foundation for writing counts as writing, so I think you could get away with calling all of these tangible writing goals.
This time I’m taking a page from David’s playbook and going with 500 words/day (two days for slacking off and it’s 2500 for the week). So that’s 2500 new words plus some research for one of my story ideas.
Good plan, Teresa. That might be the only play I’d recommend from my playbook. So long as you don’t stop writing when you get to 500 if you’re still feeling in a groove. I tried that approach once — stop at x amount of words no matter what — and it was odd and unhelpful.
In 26th page of the fourth revision of my novel and still cannot get used to the pain of killing my darlings. My production is in negative terms since I have sometimes to get rid of entire beloved chapters that previously gave me so much pride. Well-written paragraphs who gained many good feedbacks and that no longer fit in the text. Am I exaggerating if I say I grieve for days for such losses? Fourth revision and I feel that I shall have to go through as many revisions. Writers often debate about the right moment to let a novel… Read more »
You’re definitely not alone in grieving the excision of writing you admire and take pride in. It hurts! And it stinks. I know a writer who saves all of those passages in a computer file she titled “My Darlings.” She says it helps to know that they’re still around, and she’ll sometimes open that file and read from them at random. But it’s also useful to keep that stuff around just in case it might one day fit in a different project. Letting go can be hard, too. I like the empty nest analogy. I’ve never felt it, but I… Read more »
Hello all, Love this “accountability web site, fantastic idea and service thanks! I found this week’s question especially relevant (please see below), here’s why. I’m taking James Patterson’s “Master Class.com” course and there is a public post section. It’s a great course, and I’m getting a lot of value out of it. However, my ideas are well my ideas, and sharing in the digital public is not so wise I feel. I do have a “master mind editing” group of friends and those I respect I share with, but it’s one on one at the moment. I have revised and… Read more »
Hi Ray. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts, and I’m thrilled that you find these posts to be a useful tool.
Seems like your take is in line with lots of others I’ve seen — be careful with your ideas, but don’t be afraid to share your writing with people you trust. Seems spot on to me!
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