I finished a DRAFT today!! Wow!!! This is so fun and exciting! Since starting this adventure (with NaNo) I’ve finished 2 drafts and I’m starting to feel really great about it.
I always get so weird & sentimental about finishing a draft. Especially ones I have so much fun writing. I think I struggle a bit with letting go of something that didn’t take me as long as I thought it might, to finish.
And the trouble with that is that I tend to put off ACTUALLY finishing it until I completely forget about it and it collects dust in my hard drive somewhere.
BUT NOT THIS TIME.
So I’m taking a short break from it (1 week….or less idk we’ll see how long the short fiction draft takes) so that I can finish up a short fiction writing challenge I started up with friends earlier this month. And then spending the last week of January finishing it up before…
POSTING IT HERE HAHAH.
Yeah, no I mean it. I’ll be posting it in bits and pieces up here for folks to read. The plan is to be able to doodle things along with it before I post it on a more professional sphere I guess. We’ll see. Its a project I’m doing for fun so I’m trying to Let Go a little bit more.
Look forward to that~
JANUARY 19
So I’ve gotten into a new Writing Challenge with some friends from one server: PARHELIA is part of that. I’ve decided to go with some Flash Fiction/Vignette of an OC of mine based on a photo I gave to our group as inspo to draw from~ It’ll be exciting to see how everyone interprets my prompt~
BUT ALSO–
I’ve started doing some quick 10 minute writing sprints with another group of writer colleagues in our agency’s discord! It’s been a really fun way to toss out the bad brain demons and just get straight to work on a wordcount. I used to do this a lot way back when and finished a lot of drafts that way just plundering through & not stressing about whether or not something works.
We can always fix it in post~
JANUARY 25
I ran into my first issue with this word count sprint and its: Fuck What Do I Do About Editing?
Because the goal here is to Finish More Stories and to use this writing challenge to encourage the finishing of said stories. I needed a little leeway when it comes to deciding I actually want to Edit and put the work into doing that too. Right now I’m editing TAKE OUT so I’m trying to chip away at 2-3 chapters per week. Thing is, once I’ve decided I’m editing for the day, its hard to switch my brain to another story and actively write that one.
Also, like. I finished not ONE but TWO works this month so I’m giving myself a bit more flexibility this week and next~!
Not to mention the weather’s been absolute whiplash so I’m battling more headaches than I usually do.
TL;DR I’m still WRITING just not full-steam-ahead drafts!
JANUARY 30
So earlier this month I talked about potentially posting TAKE OUT up here and sure enough I DID. So far the first two episodes are up while I work on editing the third! It’s been interesting running through edits this fast but I’m glad I decided to just go for it instead of spending a bunch of time overthinking it.
(which is ironic bc this particular main character has a habit of Overthinking hehehe)
JANUARY 31
AND THAT’S A WRAP! At least for the first month of the year! I’ve started adding my BIG TOTAL at the end of my big progress tracker at the top and hitting 23,000 WORDS feels like a huge win in my books (considering this ISN’T NANO and I’ve spent a good chunk of the month in editing limbo) It’s incredible how much I’ve gotten done.
Yeah it was spread across various projects. There are a couple things I also didn’t even count up in there because it felt extra.
But it’s incredible to see how a small goal snowballs into making MORE of something even EASIER.
We’ll have to see if I can keep this up. And…. if there isn’t some way for me to translate a daily goal like this into some more personal drawing/sketching. Maybe I need a daily sketch goal this year…. hmm…
So here I am, sitting with half-eaten drafts and feeling almost dejected that NaNo is over and how (too) easy it was for me to stop writing the second I didn’t have…
…Accountability.
So I’m starting this thing now…
instead of January because starting is always difficult and there’s enough pressure come January… the habit is already sitting in my brain as is, fresh from NaNo, so why not?
I’m sitting on Many Many drafts and no accountability for finishing them. It’s not because I’m necessarily lazy or displeased with those drafts. I think my brain struggles to keep On Task with a project when it feels like the yield for it is just too far away. So I’m hoping that by chipping away at these things a little bit every day I can get a few of these Drafts, officially completed.
Maybe I’ll make an official page for those who want to keep up with my Saga as I go. The goal was to do this for (at least) a year but I would like to be able to keep this habit indefinitely.
Parameters, The Goal, Yadda Yadda
I’ve been writing for years now so I think I have a pretty good grasp of what should be feasible for me.
So lets get into it:
500-1000 words a day.
Weekends don’t count UNLESS I’m IN IT
Missed days do NOT need to be ‘made up’
But try not to miss more than 3-5 per month.
Pretty simple. The idea is that there’s no Penalty for missed days. I think I beat myself up over this sort of thing Too Much & discourage myself otherwise & give up halfway. This is about longevity & encouraging progress. Every little bit counts and every little bit is a step towards completing something.
Wowee, first month of the dang thing and we’re off to a great start. I’m already breaking my ‘take a break on weekends’ rule but I think that’s just because my current draft has me by the freakin throat. I’m just about finished that one, though. Weirdly enough I might just even jump straight into editing it when the draft is done. I know where I’d like to add a few scenes and tighten up others. It’ll be nice to reread it over now that I’ve got my big sprint in and see if my prose has suffered from my dire need to finish the thing before it escapes my brain.
IDK why im like this I just am.
Anyway, this first month was good. It wasn’t the FULL month but it might as well have been considering I’ve been writing straight through the holidays.
I’m realising that maybe 500-1000 words is a pretty good sweet spot to be writing in. 500 ensures I get a good chunk of some scenes done. I’m surprised I’m playing conservative and hovering on the 500 words end these days, but I think weirdly enough that just comes with writing a script instead of strictly prose or walls of text. I know you cram in more WC with the number of times you repeat someone’s name for Dialogue but the scenes develop faster than they might with prose so I feel like I’m almost writing too fast, if that makes any sense?
Anyway.
I’m excited to keep this habit going. They say if you can hold onto a habit for 30 days, it really does stick so I’m hoping that’s the case.
We’ll find out how I fare in the next few months, though those are the quieter ones, the habit shouldn’t be too hard to keep up!
I’ll have to start thinking about what my next draft is going to be… hmmMM.
We’re back at it again this year. You wouldn’t know this because I didn’t exist before this website was created–but in addition to my non-existence I’ve been doing nano for….
Hmmm.
14 (fourteen) years. On and off, sure. Maybe about 7 years I hit 30k, hit 20… maybe I only wrote a couple thousand, but I know a good 7 were wins…
even if those stories were never published… self… or otherwise.
But I’m tracking my progress here this year. I’m gonna be a funny guy and update this post every day instead of saving it as a draft and then posting it at the end like I keep wanting to do, psyching myself out, and then not doing.
Wow look… its November… it sure wont let me edit this calendar but it looks cute so I’m going to leave it up anyway in case you forgot how many days November has.
Anyway–in order to beat this challenge you have to write about 1666.66666– okay 1667 words a day for most days (1666 when you’re feeling particularly evil on occasion). Usually my sick strats are to write 2000 words so I can take, roughly, the last 5 days off (or have 5 days of wiggle). Usually I bounce between 1k and 5k (sometimes 10k on an absolutely fucking hogwild day wowee… maybe I’ll hit one of those this year– a guy can dream).
As a funky fresh little exercise though I’m gonna put the days I don’t hit the basic word count (1667) in RED to shame myself–(just kidding I just really like to see things funky and visual)– and the good days in yellow, I guess? I don’t like green. Just kidding idk how to do that because I’m not a tech-whiz and WP is a lil bastart about it… or I have no idea what I’m doing… (this might be the case really).
BUT FIRST–
I guess I can tell you VERY QUICKLY what the two drafts I’m picking away at are (usually I do something Fresh but one draft was literally a couple thousand words from being done, the other I just got new music so I found my inspo-groove for it again and I reaaaaaally want to finish it in 2025).
DRAGON’ BREATH (Title… uhhh WIP) This is a short 20,000 word erotic story about a knight who falls into their fantasy of fucking around with a princess… and the dragon who captured her.
XENIA This is … a fucking beast of a project (its already 47,095 words) playing with the Hero Story as told in antiquity, modernising it, crunching it up in my teeth and spitting it out into a Trans Allegory. Idk– maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t, it’s the baby bird I’m currently drip-feeding because I love the main character. I’m also playing more directly with the Myth of Narcissus which I think is fun because even I never expected to like that story as much as I am playing with it.
I don’t think NaNo will FINISH that second story’s first draft for me… but I’m hoping I can reach its halfway point. Its the longest thing I’ve written… a real Greek Epic it would seem.
How is NaNo 2024 Progressing?
NOV 01 — DRAGON’S BREATH — 1,251
NOV 02 — DRAGON’S BREATH — 1,374 (STORY END)
NOV 03 — XENIA — 2,033 >>>>>>>> TAKE OUT — 1,102
NOV 04 — XENIA — 2,018 >>>>>>>> TAKE OUT — 525
NOV 05 — XENIA — 2,004 >>>>>>>> TAKE OUT — 695
NOV 06 — XENIA — 2,059 >>>>>>>> TAKE OUT — 661
NOV 07 — XENIA — 2,024 >>>>>>>> TAKE OUT — 264
NOV 08 — XENIA — 1,026 >>>>>>>> TAKE OUT — 829
NOV 09 — TAKE OUT — 1,177
NOV 10 — TAKE OUT — 866
NOV 11 — XENIA — 2,036
NOV 12 — XENIA — 1,359 >>>>>>>> TAKE OUT — 407
NOV 13 — XENIA — 2,227
NOV 14 — TAKE OUT — 1,217 >>>>>>>> XENIA — 1,273
NOV 15 — TAKE OUT — 490
NOV 16 — TAKE OUT — 1,019
NOV 17 — TAKE OUT — 3,049
NOV 18 — TAKE OUT — 2,052
NOV 19 — TAKE OUT — 1,311
NOV 20 — TAKE OUT — 1,828
NOV 21 — TAKE OUT — 279
NOV 22 — TAKE OUT — 939
NOV 23
NOV 24
NOV 25 — TAKE OUT — 2,438
NOV 26 — TAKE OUT — 1,145
NOV 27 — TAKE OUT — 1,680
NOV 28 — TAKE OUT — 1,647
NOV 29 — TAKE OUT — 1,923
NOV 30 — TAKE OUT — 1,825
NOV 3
TAKE OUT Is … a last minute addition to the roster, a new fucking indulgent ass script I just decided to chip at about one of my tabletop characters. Don’t mind me. Maybe it’s something I’ll post here. Maybe not. You’ll see.
Am I a little bit nuts for rewarding writing… with MORE writing? Um… we’ll see!
…
NOV 5
So, I generally can’t write 2k in one go. At least not anymore. I used to be able to fixate and just GO for hours and hours… and maybe as the month progresses I’ll find that groove again, but in case this helps others: I reach my daily goals by breaking things down into manageable bits. Generally I seem to be able to sit for an hour and pull out a good 1k if I manage to focus. This gives me time to reread what I wrote previously (or a couple paragraphs for a refresh) before jumping into the new stuff… all within the same hour. My routine seems to be: after breakfast for an hour and before dinner for an hour… with bonus writing coming in after dinner because I’m excited to hop into the new stuff.
Just in case you are also doing NaNoWriMo, word of advice is don’t read TOO FAR BACK and get bogged down in a previous bad sprint. Just read what you did, remind yourself where you’re at and keep running forward. Prose is pretty much editing everything in post anyway.
…
NOV 7
Music plays an insane part in my inspiration to tell a story… so here’s Xenia’s playlist:
01. Lonely — Son Lux 02. Ashes — Radical Face 03. Thanatos — Soap & Skin 04. Dusk Talks — Woodkid 05. Hearsay — Radical Face 06. Delirium — Danny Knutelsky 07. Beware — Little Red Lung 08. Son of Nyx — Hozier* 09. The Fold — Wickerbird* 10. Seasons & Narcissus — Bastille* 11. Let Me Follow — Son Lux* 12. It’s Time For You To Stop Being A Ghost – Sindri Már Sigfússon & Sin Fang 13. This Night Is For You And For Me — Danny Norbury 14. Silence III — Son Lux
* These are story-changing songs. Songs that shaped a LOT of my current draft vs the rest which add to the vibe and help fill in the gaps in my thoughts. They all kind of help pull this thing together. (As you can see all the heavy hitters happen… where the Plot Really Kicks In).
If you do happen to listen to the playlist… get ready its a biiit of a moodkiller but that’s a bit what happens when you’re writing something of a tragedy :’)
…
NOV 12
Progress with writing is a little bit of a struggle. You pick and chip and poke away at a project and it doesn’t have the same hulking satisfaction for me as drawing does. You see files of comic pages, collections in a book. But prose just kind of fills up a document with a growing number. Its a little bit why I refuse to reread a draft as I’m working on it. Plow through, finish the thing. I think that might be advice worth giving, to folks who worry about finishing a draft. Its not perfect. It won’t be perfect the moment it comes out of your head.
Just get it down. Edit later. Let yourself have fun right now. Put everything you’ve got into it.
(I’m 61,532 words into XENIA right now and holding onto this like its my own personal Mantra. Some writing days… are rough.)
…
NOV 14
Time for a proper progress update (this is the WC & Page count the stories are at/including words outside of NaNo):
NANO WC’s SO FAR… DRAGON’S BREATH — 2,625 XENIA — 16,786 TAKE OUT — 7,699 NANO TOTAL — 27,110
So far I’m managing to keep ahead of Base Nano Goal: 23,338… with ease. Both XENIA and TAKE OUT have hit a bit of a stride for me in the last day or so, too so the next stretch should be pretty smooth! I was tempted to pull this kind of post the 15th but tomorrow is proving BUSY so you get it a day early.
…
NOV 17
Hmm… maybe we’re starting to notice that the fun story is overtaking the story that is supposed to be taking precedent here. I don’t know. I don’t have an excuse other than its been a long year and this thing is really fun to work on. I’m afraid that by flipping and flopping I’ll burn out on both stories and write nothing.
XENIA is a bit of a tough beast, I think I’m starting to wrangle her again but it needs a bit of breathing room to heal up before I start working again, I think.
…
NOV 18
Its gonna be a busy week so… why not share my tabletop OC’s playlist (the one I’m writing TAKE OUT for):
01. Nowhere Kid — Des Rocs 02. Goodbye Stranger — Supertramp 03. Aha! — Pentatonix 04. Happy Idiot — TV On The Radio 05. Love Me, Normally — Will Wood 06. Take Me Out — Franz Ferdinand 07. Back Against The Wall — Cage The Elephant 08. Spanish Armada — Ratatat 09. Two Against One — Danger Mouse, Daniele Luppi, Jack White 10. Side Character — Cloudfodder 11. Leave Me Alone — I DON’T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME 12. Lampshades On Fire — Modest Mouse 13. Makeshifter — The Kite Machine 14. Dangerous — Big Data, Joywave 15. The Rifle’s Spiral — The Shins 16. The Kintsugi Kid (Ten Years) — Fall Out Boy
This one is … considerably bigger than XENIA’s but that’s kind of what happens when you get really attached to an OC you’re tabletopping for. The first like 6-10 tracks built most of JD’s backstory which is what I’m currently scribbling so fast through this month’s NaNo.
…
NOV 25
The month’s getting rocky, we’re about to head into the holiday rush (missed 2 3 days being at a convention with long hours and, ironically, playing the TTRPG game the MC from my current draft is in).
Current wc: 41,101 41,832 NaNo on-track wc: 41,675
so we fell behind a bit (though I was already pretty sure it was going to happen, this week was BUSY but really good). Time to hurry and finish it up this week hehe-
Just kiddin’ we’re back on tOP baby~
…
NOV 30
If my math is RIGHT– that’s 50,000+ words baby. That’s a WRAP (yeah its like 13 minutes into December–I’m still counting it).
Doing my little NaNo recap tomorrow to wrap this post up and that’s IT baby~
THE RECAP
So this month was a little bit hectic, a little bit of a mess. I don’t usually split my attention between multiple projects but one Seriously needed finishing (Dragon’s Breath) and one needed to push through some Progress (Xenia).
XENIA was admittedly supposed to be my NaNo project this year but the story is going through the big Self Doubt phase and I needed a little something to rebuild my confidence. Needless to say I think TAKE OUT has been a good easy side project for me to work on. All of my current projects (with and without my partner) are all guilty pleasures in some way, shape or form but I needed something a bit more different and out there.
I’m experimenting with storytelling.
I think its important in self-publishing to have fun in different mediums, to follow what makes things easy and comfortable for you to write in. I think there’s a really fun element to reading a script (maybe that’s just my film-student side). Scripts are straightforward, little fluff. I don’t have to worry about the dialogue-tag discourse (I think both descriptive and “said” function for different writing styles and different instances btw).
Anyway.
Sometimes a writing challenge is the only way to get yourself out of a block and into the deep end. Sometimes you just have to power through the hard bits and finish the draft. It’s a sketch it’s not the final product. Also… It was really fun keeping a log of my progress and sharing some of my inspirations this month with whoever of you might be reading this. <3
Maybe you’ll join me (again?) next year… hehe.
For now… keep your eyes peeled. I’ll likely be posting TAKE OUT in it’s entirety up here once I finish editing it ;v;/