So today’s story post, which was supposed to post yesterday, but didn’t because it wasn’t written until today, is not a story.
Unless of course it is a story about me writing a story.
Because it is certainly that.
Our protagonist is my story that I’m writing. This story has slowly been trying to grow up and become an actual plot. It has stretched its wings awkwardly like a baby bird covered in egg shells. And then last week with one sentence I knew how I wanted it to go.
Except now I have to plot it.
So, of course, immediately I couldn’t even think.
And as ICING. I posted two things on Monday because I didn’t schedule correctly. Tada, competence.
Which brings me to today.
Where I write a Thursday post despite my thing being Wednesday and Monday.
And where my Thursday post isn’t a T’kk’tck post or a story post but is an explain-y post.
And preamble done.
So I want the story to run about 90k words. Why? Because then it’s a proper book size and can easily afford to lose 20-25k words in the actual editing process.
At the same time I know that 90k words is way outside my realistic writing frame. I don’t have a lot of time (I can usually only steal 4-5 hours a week from Her and at least some of those need to be relax time).
So I’ve come up with a solution. Given an hours timeframe I can reasonably pound out ~1k words. And most of the time those words can be aimed at a particular goal.
Additionally, I believe that most weeks I can achieve 3 such hour sessions.
That would put me at 31+30+31=92/7=11.x weeks *3k words = 33k words when November hits. AND IN NOVEMBER NANOWRIMO. The dedicated NANOWRIMO time puts me at ~83k words.
And by the new year 90k.
Which is a terribly awesome thing.
So this weekend all I need to do is take the plot and stretch it out to 90 short sentences, like:
“Kelpy explains what the thing is and T’kk’tck makes out with her.”
90 of these means each time I sit down to write I’ve already got a clear goal for what I’m writing.
Also because they are written out I’ve got a clear outline for how the plot should go.
So obviously, this will all be easy to write from that point on right?
Why are you laughing?
So, yes, I recognize it won’t be near that easy. In fact this carefully laid plan seems remarkably like my workout plans.
“So babe, I’ll wakeup every day and run 2-4 miles before work at 4am on workdays and then on weekends I’ll run 6 and rest Sunday and I’ll do 20 pushups every hour while at work and why are you shaking your head at me?”
But still it’s a solid plan and I’ve adapted it so that I’m not trying to overdo it. I cut down the planned words from 5k to 3k. I decided I’d only post 2 days a week and save the extra 1k weekly as a buffer incase sick. I’ve accepted that when I go back to edit this beast I’m going to have to commit word murder.
And that’s the story.
Well, that’s the story of the story that I’m going to write.
Kelpy and T’kk’tck will return Monday and Wednesday with regular updates. Samples from their story. Not everything will appear on the blog, however, I’m aiming to ensure that 60% stays out so that the book when done will mean something but that will still leave plenty of stories and adventures showing up all the way into January.
Anyways, thanks for reading and I hope you are as excited about this as I am.
Cus I am.
-Yerrik
Wordsremember 