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Write-a-thon, Week 4

Slow day today. Lots of scratching in the dirt, not much progress. Tomorrow, I’ll be back to the novel. Here are Monday’s stats:

“Jing the Quae”: 749 words
Weekly Total: 749 words
Write-a-thon Total:
49,170

Very slow day for me, mostly because Jing the Quae is almost as stalled as it was when I set it down a few months ago. We’ll see what I come up with tomorrow, when I turn my attention back to To the Happy Country…. But, on the other hand, I did hit the gym.

Tuesday & Wednesday Updates:

Tuesday stats:

I didn’t get around to posting stats on Tuesday. I was trying to get at least 300 words out, to make up for the shortfall on Monday, but I took a break that ended up being a night’s sleep, and I had to head out earlyish on Wednesday. Here’s Tuesday’s stats!

To the Happy Country…: 1563 words
Weekly Total:
2,132 words
Write-a-thon Total: 51,302 words

Wednesday Stats:

An aberration, here: You’ll notice “The Fairer Blog.” That’s not a story, but rather the column I write for Cahoots Magazine. Since I am counting it as part of my Write-a-thon, I asked my editor to contribute the proceeds to the funding drive, and she has agreed. So I can, in all good conscience, include the column (which after all I could have written months ago) in on the wordage of the write-a-thon.

More stats for the fiction side of the writing coming soon. This week is gonna be rough: I had to sit at the doctor’s office a few hours today (nothing serious, just annoying, and I’m torn between wanting to slug the ENT I was seeing who trold me I was losing my hearing, and jumping with glee to find out my hearing’s just fine); I am in a slump; and I’m hitting Wednesday night with less than 5000 words done, while I’ve got an appointment Friday afternoon and a concert in the evening. Eeek. We’ll see what happens, I guess. I could just do a write-in on Saturday, but it might end up being a new project, as Jang Won is not cooperating at all these days. He just wants to relax and rest on his laurels.

Ah well, at least I have some new, cool music to fill the silence of thinking through what will happen next: specifically, the soundtrack of the Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance film, by my favorite Korean indie band, the Uh Uh Boo Project Band. Seriously cool, weird, with a Koreanized polka and Irish-folk sounding harshness and some very odd sounds.

“The Fairer Blog” column on womens’ hiking blogs: 1,433 words
To the Happy Country: 856 words
Weekly Total: 4,421
Write-a-thon Total:
53,591

Thursday Update:

Looks like Saturday’s going to be a long day of drafting… or something. I’m stuck on To the Happy Country… and “Jing the Quae” is not budging, but I set all that aside and dove headfirst into the pulpy fun of a story called “The Innsmouth Fatwa”:

“The Innsmouth Fatwa”: 2500 words
Weekly Total: 6621
Write-a-thon Total:
56,091

I may just bank those extra words from previous weeks, because, in addition to being less than halfway to my weekly total, and only 3,909 words from the overall quota, I’m having pain in my right index finger, because, well, I type in a very idiosyncratic way. Also, I’m supposed to meet Charles tomorrow afternoon and see Irish music tomorrow night. But we’ll see, though. It’d also be nice to finish ahead of schedule, and I have two more nights during which to produce something like 8,500 words. I can do it… I have before, after all. But the real barrier is knowing what to do with my novel. Happily, I’ll have lots of time tomorrow to consider that.

Friday Update:

The Innsmouth Fatwa: 2120 words
Weekly Total: 8841 words
Write-a-thon Total:
58,211 words

I took a little time off… met Charles and headed to a tea house for a good conversation (and some pretty good iced omija hwachae (punch), which is like omija tea except with bits of watermelon floating in it), which was cool. When I got to the Irish music thing, it was packed, so instead of standing for an houring, hoping for somewhere to sit during intermission, I decided to go catch a movie instead. Got home around midnight. I have two more scenes to go to finish The Innsmouth Fatwa, and I know what they’re going to consist of, too. The week’s sample is going to be from this story, because Jang Won’s life is too complicated for me to sort out right now. I’m going to try to thump out the remaining 6,159 words tomorrow, but I may well have to bank some of the extra words from previous weeks to make my quota. It’s getting tough to fill my quota, mostly because I don’t get the amount of reflection time I need to know where the story will go next, and whether it’s gone where it needs to in order to move on. A chat with Lime about it did help me, even though it was mostly me just babbling about changes I was thinking about making.

Tonight’s musical aid provided by Nine Inch Nails, which I almost never listen to, but it’s really the best thing when writing battle scenes involving young, semi-secular mujahideen blasting away at Tentacled Things from The Deeps in the streets of Innsmouth.

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