ROW80 - Round 3 - Check in 6

Goal: To complete prep work for the 2nd draft of a novel.

Wow, another Sunday already. I got back from Newcastle late Thursday. I even managed to do a 10 min freewrite on the train down, which felt really uncomfortable as I had people sitting in close proximity to me so I think I'll stick to writing at my desk from now on. Does anyone else write in unusual places?

I've filled in spreadsheet data up to chapter 16 now and only have 7 more chapters to go to complete stage 1. I'm noticing as I'm moving through the middle part of the story I'm getting more missing data for "days" and "time" so next stage will be to print it out and go over the timeline with a fine tooth comb.

After working on Shroud on Saturday morning, I then flaffed about with the blog all afternoon. I've tightened up on my post labels, started my new feature "My Top 5" where I'll be sharing some of my favourite things in  a catergory. My first few will concern books.

I also decided to test my basic photoshop skills and add a banner to the blog, 20 attempts later it still doesn't fit the space provided but I'll sort that out later today. I think I need to lose 20 pixels of the width. What's wrong with centimetre's?

I've managed to get some poetry reading done and should have a review of The Rhysling Anthology up in the next few days.

I failed on my exercise goal and decided to get back to studying on Saturday which went out the window after I got sidetracked with the blog changes.

As of this week, I'm going to use Wednesday to write new poetry and want to try and read at least one article a week from my writing magazines.

I'm also itching to start a new project. I have no idea what or I may spend a couple of days on my novella.

How's your week been?

ROw80 - Round 3 - Check in 5

Goal: To complete prep work for 2nd draft of a novel

After checking in on Sunday I added spreadsheet data for chapters 5 & 6. I checked over the 4th section of my course. The next assignment seems more about rewriting existing poems than writing new ones so I'm going to schedule in one night a week for writing new poems so I'm still producing fresh work. I did my 5 minutes of pranayama and finished reading and reviewed The Invisible Man by H G Wells.

On Monday, my mind being full of the recent mindless events meant all my goals went out the window but I'm more focused on writing now as it's time to start moving towards getting out of this city once and for all.

Tuesday was a low production day due to only getting two hours of sleep on the Monday night but I began adding data for Chapter 7.

I'm off on a business trip for a few days so I'm planning on reading poetry if I get the chance.

Stay save everyone.

ROw80 - Round 3 - Check in 4

My Goal: To complete prep work for the 2nd draft of  a novel

On the last check in someone asked about my spreadsheet, it's quite a basic affair but first I'll explain what my plans are for tackling the rewrite.

One thing that was missing from my paper thin 1st draft was location details, you'd think my characters were walking around in a blank canvas. As I can rebuild my locations independent of plot and character development I'm focusing on that.

The spreadsheet itself will give me an overview of every appearance of every location in all my chapters. I'll also be using it to fill in the timeline. One thread of my novel starts back in a character's past.

The next stage will be to complete any necessary research for building the locations and writing out a description of each location on a separate piece of paper. I can then keep that in front of me when I start rewriting the actual novel.

Next prep stage will be to:

• Complete research for vague bits in the plot. 
• Redo all my character sheets, and figure out my antagonists theory. 
• Add new location and character sheets for the two story threads I'll be fully developing in the 2nd draft.

Once all that's done, it'll be time to look at individual scenes. I'm trying to break it down as much as possible into manageable chunks before weaving all that information back together.

My spreadsheet has 8 headings for:
Chapter - which chapter the data is for
Location - What locations are present in each chapter
Journey - When characters need to get from a-b
Day - what day of the week each chapter takes place
Time of Day - the time of day i.e morning, afternoon, night
Year - the year i.e 1963 or 2011
POV - The PoV character for the chapter
Character's present - What other character's are present.

I may insert headings for emotion and important info revealed

I've completed spreadsheet data for the 1st four chapters and can already see that I've got space to insert new chapters to follow through the 1963 timeline. I still need to go back over most of my entries to fill in day's.

On my other goals, I finished my current assignment, have done no reading since last check in and didn't do my exercise goal.

How's everyone else doing?

ROw80 - Round 3 - Check in 3

My Goal: To complete prep work for 2nd draft of a novel

Even though we are experiencing a rare appearance of something called sunshine in the UK, I managed some productivity.

Wrote another poem and its related commentary which means I'm on track to have my current assignment all finished by Friday. Yay. The end is in sight.

Managed to get some reading done but not as much as I would've liked. I was expecting to be finished with H G Wells by now.

I have a couple of ideas in mind for blog posts but so far I haven't sat down to write them.

Completed filling in my spreadsheet data for Chapter 1 of the novel, which will actually become chapter 2 when I start the actual rewrite.

All in all, slowly chipping away. Visit the other participants below:

ROw80 - Round 3 - Check in 2

My Goal: To complete prep work for 2nd draft of a novel.

Not made much progress since I checked in a week ago. Been stupidly tired all week that my motivation got up and left.

I decided to introduce some fitness back into my life and have been doing 5 minutes of pranyama with the ipad. I'm already starting to feel more awake.

Today, I pulled myself out of the slump:
Wrote a new poem for my course, typed up a couple of summaries
Read some poetry for a change and read a chunk of The Invisible Man by H G Wells.

As for my actual ROW80 goal, I started transferring my location details onto the spreadsheet and also been filling in what characters are present and the pov character. I've started adding years to the timeline and will need to work out what day and time of day events actually take place. (Ok I admit, I did the bare minimum just so I could check in today.)

Hope you're all having a great weekend:



Other Recent Posts you may have missed:
Last Monday Poetry - Love Poem to the Sea
ROW80 - Round 3 - Check in 1

ROw80 - Round 3 - Check in 1

My Goal - To complete prep work for the 2nd Draft of a novel.

I dug out the 1st draft of Shroud and have been going through making a list of all the story's locations and characters journeys from A to B and am up to chapter 6. My 1st draft was devoid of any real detail and I have a background element which is relevant to the locations that hasn't been developed enough.

I'm still studying but once the latest assignment is done I'll have a whole week to carry on with this before I need to begin the 4th part of my course and hopefully I can import the whole thing into a spreadsheet and start working out my timeline.

It's good to be back.

How's everyone else doing?



Other recent posts you may have missed:
Book Review - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 20
My Top 5 Favourite Ghost Stories

A general writing update

I pretty much switched off from the wips lately and that in itself has been beneficial. It's given brain a chance to figure out things on its own without being pushed and pulled by other influences and I think I'm starting to define my own writing themes. I did manage to jot down more notes for developing Shroud and the second rewrite should be in a lot better shape.

I've also pretty much decided to ignore the craft of writing books, they're generally too formulaic and stringent and it's just not how I work. I'm slowly inching forward with getting write brain in line with reader brain.

Other recent posts you may have missed:

Last Monday Poetry
Poetry News - 3 Short Horrors Accepted

ROW80 - Check in 7

My Goal: To continue research for 2 novella's in progress.

Still chipping away at the research which has been sending me in circles although I was eventually able to confirm that a character's occupation was possible in my selected time period.

Also realised I'm completely behind on reading, and behind on studying and am itching to get back to writing although I'm trying to resist the urge until the research is done so perhaps I should do some freewriting or work on some poetry. My routine has gone somewhat kaput over the last week.

It's the mid round blues for me at the moment.LOL

ROW80 - Check in 5

My goal: To continue planning The Clown Inside in conjunction with The Nighttime Novelist on Tuesday nights.

Did I do it? I didn't actually open The Nighttime Novelist but I decided to decide on the story's location, after doing some browsing I still haven't decided on a location. I don't want a city nor a big town, nor a small village (that's penciled in for the next novella). I tried to narrow it down by county but none of them felt right or perhaps I'm leaning towards going to the north of England with this one.

I also did some research into my characters occupation, the routine involved, the lifestyle and have bookmarked a few websites that sounded current and useful for making notes. My research prodding also raised further questions that need to be answered and a few different story paths have been unearthed.

Decisions. Decisions. Meanwhile visit the other challenge participants



Recent posts you may have missed
Poetry - A Poem's Sad Tale Of Copyright Infringement
ROW80 - Celebrating The End Of Draft 1

ROW80 - Celebrating The End Of Draft 1

After being hopelessly stuck in the middle section of the story I took a mixture of advice from the row80 folk and ploughed through to the end. Draft 1 of my novella is now complete at 14283 words. My intended length was 30k, oops. All the bare bones of the story are there, now it needs filling in properly.

What happens next? I'll start rewriting Shroud once my current course is complete which I expect will be in the autumn. Rather than drop out of round 2 I'll be using Tuesday nights to continue planning my second novella The Clown Inside (working title) in conjunction with The Nighttime Novelist. I'm aiming for a complete novella of 20k words.

Thanks to everyone at ROW80 for their support.

ROW80 - Round 2 - Check in 4

My Goal: To write between 200-600 words on my novella in progress Shroud Of Death on Tuesday nights.

What really happened? After announcing my goal change at the last check in, I added 241 words on Sunday night and added 206 words yesterday. I'm at a scary point, I currently have no idea how to move through the middle and during nanowrimo and various other projects in the past this is generally when I give up. Writing yesterday, I couldn't feel the story at all and can only see a thick impenetrable fog but little by little I'll keep poking it until it shifts. I can't leave another novella dead at the side of the road.

How you all doing?

ROW80 - Round 2 - Check in 3 - Goal Change

I think I've exercised the writing muscle enough now to start stretching it so I'm checking in today to set my new goal.

I also added 320 words to Shroud of Death last Wednesday and have crept into chapter 15 with the certainty that things are going to get very messy while I start tying up my threads in prep for the main conflict.

My new Goal: Add between 200 - 600 words to my Novella Shroud of Death on Tuesday nights only. Check in on Wednesday's.

Hope everyone's enjoying the weekend.

Recent posts you may have missed:
Book Review - The Man In The Picture by Susan Hill
Check In 2

Visit the other participants below:

ROW80 - Round 2 - Check in 2

Hello all, nice to see you at the check in, hope it's going well for you.


My goal: Write between 100-500 words on my novella Shroud Of Death on Tuesday nights only.

What really happened? Last Thursday, I added 589 words on what was supposed to have been my night off.

Tuesday, I added 224 words and the character whose given me the most grief so far is dropping back story faster than a black cloud drops rain and I want to put my arms around this frail old guy and protect him from the nasty antagonist but alas, his plight is far from over.

Support the other participants here


Recent Posts you may have missed:
Review - Banquet for the Damned by Adam Nevill
ROW80 - Round 2 - Check in 1

ROW80 - Round 2 - Check in 1

My Goal - Write between 100-500 words on my novella in progress "Shroud Of Death" on Tuesday Nights.

What really happened? I wrote 1000 words on Shroud Of Death last night. My baby now stands at a total of 11424 words and I'm sitting on Chapter 13 and at the middle point in the story.

Click here to cheer on the rest of the crew

Recent posts you may have missed:

Website updates
ROW80 and a new outlook
Book Review - Houses Without Doors by Peter Straub

Last ROW80 check in and bonus poem

Seeing as I've spent most of the day thinking it's Thursday anyway and awhile ago I designated Thursday night as my do nothing night I'm doing the last check in tonight.

Thinking back over row80 as always when I first start something I got off to a pretty good start even though the word count was low and I was reacquainting myself with writing fiction again and was starting from 1st base despite the years I'd written short fiction for.

Things started to go wrong when I started changing my goals, each new attempt kept me going for a few days then I'd hit a bump that would flip me high in the air and drop me back but way off course.

I'm still bemused by March being so unproductive, there are two months in the year where I expect that I won't get anything done and they are generally February and November.

Learning wise, I've kept going in a roundabout manner. I've lost that fear of putting work aside and knowing that I'll never come back to. I can come back to it and the words will always be there. I'm losing that fear of never being able to finish something I've started and a ton of other stuff I can't think of right now.

Over the last couple of days I finished Assignment 2 and finished the replacement prologue for Shroud Of Death.

I'm going to say goodbye and special thanks to all the row80 writers for the community.

Hope

The photographer studied the graffiti
through his viewfinder, he paced back and forth
left and right until the alignment was just right.
He peered over the top of the camera getting one last look
at the word painted on the red brick wall.

He assumed from the crudeness that a child
had stood on tips toes outlining the word
with a brush dipped in black paint, then coloured
in the H O P and E white. The child had then painted
a thick purple border around its masterpiece.

Hope one word that says it all
in a rundown part of London
where children play in the streets
in filthy trainers and clothes too big
for their small frames hemmed in
by council estates and rubbish bags
piled on street corners.

One word Hope is all the photographer
needs as he takes the shot.

Copyright Infringement On A Sunday Morning

The first thing I discovered when I logged onto twitter this morning is that someone had taken it upon themselves to post my poem Forgotten Victim to their blog in its entirety without my permission.

I've left a comment asking for it to be removed. I no longer submit my work to non-paying markets and I am not actively submitting my work at the moment. Certain words in the poem are also linking to 3rd party advertisers and this use of my work would certainly not constitute fair use.

The offending website is here and I would urge everyone to check that their work is also not being posted without their permission and for a fellow writer to be so slap dash with another authors work is just unbelievable and unprofessional.

You can only use 10% of an authors work before permission is needed. I respect an authors work which is why I also pay contributors to Dark Metre and offer a contract.

I've taken all necessary screen shots in case I need to take this matter further which I am prepared to do.

A Round Of Words - Check-in 19

Again, after switching back to study mode I'm still trying to clamber back on to the wagon. I was hoping to finish the assignment yesterday but I've hit a bit of a block for the last two poems I need to write. It will be done and emailed off today. The delay has also put me behind on my rewrites for assignment 1.

Since the last check in, I've evaluated poems 3 and 4.
Friday night, I finally hit delete on the original prologue of Shroud and added about 120 words to the new prologue to get it back on course.

Areas I really need to focus on:
Rewrites from Assignment 1 (about 4 left)
Read and critique more poetry from Staying Alive
Pace myself better.

See how the rest of the participants are doing:

A Round Of Words - Check-in 18

Thanks to everyone for commenting on my last check-in. I appreciate the writing community and support from you guys, much of writing is about working blind in a cave sometimes and I'm loathe to leave things hanging.

My new revised goals are to study 5 out of 7 days and work on Shroud one night, giving myself a night off. The current schedule can be read here. I'll be revising it all again on Sunday in preparation for section 3 of my course module. I'm hoping to use Thursday night to start getting some exercise back into my life as well.

I also spent some time today fleshing out the plot for novella 6 (which could be my most hardcore horror one yet) and getting to grips with my antagonists outfit for novella 2.

It's time to start crossing the finish line with everybody.

A Round Of Words - Check-in 16

Not sure what to put in this check in. Well after putting Shroud down, I've done no reading and spent the latter part of the week trying to put my poetry hat on straight.

I wrote one poem for my course on Thursday night.

Typed up the evaluation of above poem on Saturday.

Wrote and evaluated another poem on Saturday as well as a few twitter poems (which can be found under my favourites if you're curious.)

Also somewhere over the last few days, I can't actually remember when, I added another poem to my submission package and got another 5 to write for that before I can submit.

I also flipped through my course materials and after the current assignment that's due today there's a lot more work involved so the future for Shroud is looking shaky at the moment. And I'm still not reading enough poetry.

Recent posts you may have missed:
My poem Sand Man
My Friday 56 entry
Check in 15

How are the rest of the ROW80ers doing?


How's the crew doing?

A Round Of Words - Check-in 15

Me been bad this week. Shroud is on hold until my assignments out of the way, I would've tried to at least do a few sentences around studying if it weren't for the fact I realised I was going in the complete wrong direction with two of the characters.

I've decided to write a new prologue to establish the new historical background info and just tweak a line of dialogue and make changes to the latest chapter to bring Shroud back on course. I decided against revising from page one because that would be the kiss of death, I've tried it in the past and it has killed my project. I shall muddle through to the end of the first draft and then start major revisions.

I wish I could be more of a fore planner but until I start writing I really don't know how my ideas will look or where I need to go. It's too much empty space buried in the depths of my unconscious mind to be tangible and the way my brain works it kinda sorts things out for itself way after I've chosen one direction by which point I'm in a rut.

I'm also a write in short bursts writer, few sentences here, few sentences there go off and have a cuppa come back to the computer. I'm still expecting to finish draft 1 by the end of March and then begin the real work of making Shroud all coherent and sparkley.

As for studying, I'm all caught up on the exercises and have written one of the poems needed for the assignment. For the foreseeable future this blog will be acting as my fiction writing learning log. Having this space to let off about ups and downs is helping put things in perspective and my writing would not have got this far without row80.

Once the assignments done, I'm going to pencil in an hour on either Saturday or Sunday to continue the planning of my second novella TCI, this one's a much simpler storyline and more linear so I've got a better grasp on its course but will need much more research before I can begin.

No word count to report since last check in

completed  to do's since last check in:

Read a section of the book I'm currently reading 19/2/11

Do exercise 6 20/2/11

Do exercise 7 20/2/11

Do exercise 8 20/2/11

Visit those who have taken up this writing challenge