martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Hmm, it seems to be flowing a little better now. Maybe because I killed a major character. :)

Skinsongs

Projected word count for September 22nd, 2006:
57500

Actual word count for September 22nd, 2006:
57500

Current word status:
On target
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Back on track... hoorah for scenes with dead bodies in morgues, for being nice and wordy!

Skinsongs

Projected word count for September 21st, 2006:
56000

Actual word count for September 21st, 2006:
56000

Current word status:
On target!!
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Gah...

Skinsongs

Projected word count for September 13th, 2006:
54500

Actual word count for September 13th, 2006:
53500

Current word status:
1000 words
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Playing the catch-up game...

Skinsongs

Projected word count for September 19th, 2006:
53000

Actual word count for September 13th, 2006:
52000

Current word status:
1000 behind
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Took the day off. Sorry. I'll have to catch up during the week. Bloody cold. :(


Skinsongs

Projected word count for September 18th, 2006:
51500

Actual word count for September 13th, 2006:
50000

Current word status:
1500 behind
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Skinsongs

Projected word count for September 15th, 2006:
50000

Actual word count for September 15th, 2006:
50000

Current word status:
On target
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Skinsongs

Projected word count for September 14th, 2006:
48500

Actual word count for September 14th, 2006:
48250

Current word status:
250 words behind
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Skinsongs

Projected word count for September 13th, 2006:
47000

Actual word count for September 13th, 2006:
47000

Current word status:
On target
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Okay, sharp eyed readers might notice my word count hasn't gone up. That's because I bloody hate this book. If I had my way, I'd transfer all the files onto a CD and put it in the microwave on high for five seconds. With no backups. That'd learn it. I'm ready to write my back-cover blurb already.
    "...a cat who'd eaten a plate of rotten fried eggs could have vomited up a better novel than SKINSONGS..."
    Every Reader Alive
Still, what am I gonna do for the next month and a half? Write something good? Yeah, right, like that's gonna happen... what a frickin' fraud...

Skinsongs

Projected word count for September 12th, 2006 (happy now, [livejournal.com profile] ashamel?):
45500

Actual word count for September 12th, 2006:
46000

Current word status:
500 ahead
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
The best way of stopping yourself falling behind is by changing your expectations. :) Skinsongs is feeling like an 80000 word novel now, not a 100000 word one, so I sliced twenty thousand words of each of my daily expected totals, and blow me down, I'm suddenly ahead of the game again. Isn't that handy?

Skinsongs

Projected word count for 09-11-06 (yes, Lee, I DO use that format!):
44000

Actual word count for 09-11-06:
46000

Current word status:
2000 ahead
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Well, I've been going over what I've done and having a good hard think (oo-er!). I've been thinking of going through the entire novel and upgrading the technology, to make it more sci-fi. Until now, I've basically set it in, as MST3K say, Next Sunday AD. And I liked that. Everything fit there, except for one plot point, the one that opens the whole novel, the plastech autosurgeon. It's just too advanced for the rest of the book. So, my writerly brain says, upgrade the rest of the tech to suit it.

Except...

Well, except it's not hugely necessary for the plot. It was just one more twist amongst many, and has stood out like a sore thumb. I loved the idea behind it, but the more I think, the more I suspect it doesn't belong in this book. So I'm giving serious consideration to just taking it out altogether, rather than rewriting the whole thing as more skiffy-ish.

Who was the canny bastard that said you have to kill your darlings? Sigh...
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Well, the word count hasn't gone up, but I HAVE entered in four chapter outlines, so that should make writing them easier. Theoretically. I'm sick of using the Stephen King "just write without planning ahead, that'll make it spontaneous" method, all it's creating is waffle. Time to get the plot back on course. I can see that the whole book is awfully paced and structured, but I'll fix that in later edits. Right now, I just want to get the plot out and done, so I have something to show the Australia Council for my year here. I'm feeling like a fraud. :(

So, going by my original schedule:

Skinsongs

Projected word count for 04-09-06:
56500

Actual word count for 08-08-06:
43000

Current word status:
13500 words behind

Oh dear...
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Well, I've been doing a lot of thinking about this project this week. Not much writing, but lots and lots of thinking. Picture Rodin's statue, but me. And not naked. God, don't picture me naked. Not if you want to sleep tonight.

I've decided I need a new approach to it, as well as editing it into the shape I want before continuing, so I decided to bite the bullet and try a different piece of software for writing it. I've always written in Word in a single gigantic file, which is great and all, but at around the half-way point it starts to become daunting, plus you lose track of characters and the like (Jasmine was a perfect example from Carnies, where I literally forgot all about her. Damn, I had plans for that girl. Ah well, she'll be back for the sequel. :)

So, time to give yWriter a whirl. It's a neat piece of software from Simon [livejournal.com profile] halspacejock Haynes, to organise chapters and the like. I'm not using it to its full potential, I think to do that you'd have to start the book in the program, use it to do the outlining, etc. But I've entered all my existing chapters and characters into it, and I'll see how it goes from there. If it goes well, I might use it from scratch for the next project. It's just a question of getting used to it, I think. More work to start with, but less later on, which is when it counts. :)

Anyway, today, instead of a word count, I present a screen capture of my day's work, transferring all this crap over to yWriter. I might do some more work on it later today, or just leave it until tomorrow, let it all percolate overnight. It's all good.

martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Well, this week has turned into, pardon the pun, a write-off. The week's break last week has convinced me of something I already knew but was unwilling to admit - Skinsongs isn't working in its current form. It's headed in the wrong direction. Now, I COULD change the direction from this point onwards, but I don't think that'd be doing it justice. So I'm going to have to do the unthinkable, something Stephen King says never to do, and go back to the start and rewrite from scratch. I made some serious character and plotting mistakes in the first forty thousand words that need to be corrected before I can continue.

Bugger.

So, the rest of this week is dedicated to that. It's more an edit than a complete rewrite, the basic skeleton of the plot is still pretty much correct, I just need to fix a few things. Mainly:
  • Upgrade the tech so it's consistent - I have automatic plastic surgery machines, yet everything else is pretty much as it is today, which makes no sense.
  • Swap the fannish qualities of Trace and her flatmate. At this stage, the flatmate was the skinsongs fan, while Trace was a cynic. This meant that she didn't really want to be doing any of this, and was not emotionally involved. It also meant she dragged her feet at every friggin' opportunity, making the book slow toi a crawl. Stoopid characters. So I'm swapping part of her brain with Noni's. Let's see how she likes that!
So, no word counts until I'm back up to date. I suspect this will make the book shrink a little. I hope it will, actually, as I'm 40000 words in and nothing much has happened yet. Let's streamline the beast a little!

And maybe, just maybe, get me excited about it again.
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Well, that week in Belgium has thrown a spanner in the works, hasn't it? As of today, I'm four thousand words behind. In addition, I'm totally sick of the book, think it's a waste of time, and I'm giving serious thought to working on a collection of ghost stories set in and around the UK instead. I have seven ideas for stories at this stage, at various stages of mental development. They are (mostly working titles only):

  • 888: A Ghost Storey
  • Circle Line
  • The Phantom Coach
  • The Last Gig of Jimmy Rucker
  • Conversation With a Dead Irishman
  • The Stone Council
  • The Village

Anyway, here's the required public shaming...

Skinsongs

Projected word count for 28-08-06:
47000

Actual word count for 08-08-06:
43000

Current word status:
4000 behind
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Skinsongs

Projected word count for 11-08-06:
32500

Actual word count for 11-08-06:
32687 (happy???)

Current word status:
187 ahead
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Skinsongs

Projected word count for 10-08-06:
31000

Actual word count for 10-08-06:
31000

Current word status:
On target
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Skinsongs

Projected word count for 09-08-06:
29500

Actual word count for 08-08-06:
29500

Current word status:
On target
martinlivings: (Skinsongs)
Due to public consultation (thanks, all!), I'm cutting the bells and whistles out, and just posting the basics. So, in the new format:

Skinsongs

Projected word count for 08-08-06:
28000

Actual word count for 08-08-06:
28000

Current word status:
On target

Profile

martinlivings: (Default)
Martin Livings

December 2009

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