Write Every Day: 02 August 02019

[silveradept]

Greetings! This is the Write Every Day Check-in post for 02 August 02019.

A quick reminder that we do not discriminate here about what qualifies as writing, and there is no obligation to participate every day.

One of the many stories I've heard from author Seanan McGuire is a useful way of keeping track of how much writing you've been doing in a given day. While there are places out on the Web that draw from the rich corpus of pet pictures to give us motivation to keep putting words on the page (electronically speaking), Seanan has a suggestion that works outside of screens and websites and can also be used if you have writing periods interrupted by floofs, pets, smallings, or any other part of your life that demands your attention.

Most people have some form of dice available to them, whether part of board games or part of their extensive collection of polyhedral stones in varying colors, designs, and abilities to roll correctly when threatened.

The nice thing about dice is, unless you're getting them from a Formula De box, they count up from 1 to whatever number they need to. And, because we're humans (or at least close enough to humans that we'll be mistaken for them on the street), we like to think of things in nice round numbers, like 100s.

Seanan's suggestion is to grab the die that best matches your writing goal for the day in 100s of words (d4 or d6 is pretty good to start with, but I'm sure there are people that want to use d20s and d30s Or are keeping track of NaNo progress with a percentage die and a d10.)

Then:

1. Start your words die on 1.


2. Write 100 words.


3. Turn the die to the next number.


4. Write another 100 words.


5. When you've flipped the die back to 1, you've met your goal!

For the math-inclined folks, you can set long goals for work and such by using combinations of dice, and when you roll your 100s die back to 1, you add one to your loop die and start again, and when you've returned back to 1 on both dice, you've reached your goal.

It's a slightly nerdy way of keeping track, but it also sets it in place if you like to compose in notebooks or other things that don't give you immediate feedback about your wordcount.

Today, I tried to eat big chunks of the remaining narrative in the Giving of Grief, but I didn't get through it all. I did add some posts to the queue, though, and I'm running down to the end of this story, so that I can at least get going on something new / fresh soon.

How is your writing going? Good things abound for you?

People who have checked in on Day 1: alexcat, alexseanchai, athaia, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.

People who have checked in with writing on Day 2: alexcat, alexseanchai, athaia, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shhttps://www.dreamwidth.org/editjournal?journal=silveradept&itemid=784824op, cornerofmadness, lferion, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, yasaman

Comments

[sylvanwitch]

I only lurk on Twitter, not having an account there myself, but one of the writers I follow is Seanan McGuire. Her advice is always no-b.s. and compelling. I like that!

I added 1051 to the H50 story, finishing the first draft.

[silveradept]

Hooray for a first draft!

Seanan stories are always entertaining. And one of these days, someone will manage to get her to talk at length about folklore.

[alexseanchai]

I did not tag this fic "I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping" but I absolutely could have. And then I spawned another novel-length fic concept—it is very role reversal and it's gonna be so much fun if I can, like, focus on it long enough.

*eyes bunny list* I am dubious about that if

[silveradept]

Bunnies are very high-energy and attention-demanding. The odds on the if might be a lit long(-eared).

[alexseanchai]

🐇 + 🥕 = 🐰🐰🐰

I have now sourced the particular version of a story I want to quote to Mathemagic, the 1978 addition to Childcraft (the edition with the blue cover), but I cannot find the actual text online. (Could borrow from the archive dot org library, but that sounds like work.) If, however, I simply mention exponential growth in proximity to introducing breeding pairs of rabbits to an otherwise uninhabited island…

[silveradept]

Hehe. There's a picture book at the library, I think it's Emily Gravett doing the pictures, that is specifically about the bunny problem as a Fibanocci sequence, and the illustrations are wonderful chaos incarnate.

[alexseanchai]

I think Fibonacci is exactly what Mathemagic was on about here, yeah

[alexcat]

Another 100 drabble for today -- hoping to do one for each day this month plus my other projects. Today was house cleaning day so not so much writing.

[silveradept]

Hooray for a drabble!

There was cleaning where I was today as well, but someone else was doing the work. I was just paying for it. But it's nice to get a few years' worth of stuff out in one shot, so it was worth it.

[cornerofmadness]

neat idea

got 283 words on my intoabar story

[silveradept]

Yay, story!

(I missed signups this year. I'm still miffed about that.)

[cornerofmadness]

Thanks and aww, that's too bad.

[lferion]

300ish words on a Silmarillion piece that insisted on being set down, though it's not at all what I wanted to be writing. (Much, much too grim for what I want/need to be writing.) It may do for the current Fan Flashworks prompt if I can wrestle it into some kind of completion.

Why does my brain do this to me? Ah well.

[silveradept]

There are times where the brain seizes on a thing and demands that this thing be written, and not any of the other things that are equally, if not more, important, than that. And yet, if we don't let the brain do what it wants, it digs its heels in and refuses to cooperate.

[sonia]

Picked a topic, set up the file, added some brainstorming sentences for the topic, added a link for the "Learn More" section.

I aim for 2-3 pages in a Word doc for each article, since I print them out for clients as well as post them on my site. Sometimes I have to make the margins smaller to make one fit in 3 pages... I often give myself permission to make one short if I'm struggling with it. That helps me get started, but they almost always end up half-way down the third page anyway.

Possibly have a title idea for the next book compilation of articles, too. I've been trying to come up with one for quite a while. Not 100% sure I want to go through the work of making a book again, but maybe...

[silveradept]

Maybe. It would be nice if there were some programs that would do the work of converting what we've already made for one form into another form that's suitable for printing or other such things.

[alexseanchai]

Calibre? Not sure it'll meet sonia's particular stated needs though

[sonia]

The problem is not formatting. Or not only formatting. I've made my peace with InDesign. It's organizing many articles into some sort of coherent whole, and writing chapter intros and other glue, and editing and proofreading, and designing a cover (I've only dabbled in PhotoShop), and etc. It took me a year to do the last one, even though it was "just" organizing articles into a book, and that was using all the scaffolding I built for the first one!

And then making an ebook, I have used Calibre to good effect, but that is also about 10x as hard as it "should" be.

[chanter1944]

100 words or so on this pesky/excellent plot bunny fic! I went and looked up just what this Hitalia thing is, and wow does it sound silly and over the top. I'm going more serious, which is not surprising, I expect.

I love that song! The Alien Ant Farm version, that is. It was kind of a semi anthem for teenage!me. Hard rock and no doubt about it, but melodic at the same time. :) I've always wondered if the oft-named Annie survived...

[alexseanchai]

(psst: H E T A L I A; you have too many I's and not enough E's)

[chanter1944]

Buggerations! *blush* Screenreaders. Thanks. :/

[silveradept]

Hetalia, which I have not actually seen any of, is silly and over the top, just from the descriptions that I have seen.

Annie, at least according to the original, was the person struck by the smooth criminal, and so she didn't survive the encounter. One can only hope he was brought to justice.

The music video for the AAF version is great, including light-up sidewalks and mailboxes. They were definitely having a good time with it.

[china_shop]

3rd: I'm not sure how many words I just added to my flashfic, but at least 224, and it's nearly done. Maybe just one or two paras to go... if I can figure out what they are. :-)

[silveradept]

Isn't that the trickiest thing, knowing that there isn't all that much more left to do, but not knowing exactly how much of that not yet there is left? Hope you find the words.

[yasaman]

1,187 words for me today! I'd hoped to be finished with a rough draft of this scene today, so I'll make an effort to finish it up before bed.

[silveradept]

Go you. But also go sleep.

[auroracloud]

I added a paragraph to my novel. I was so sleep-deprived I didn't manage anything more, though I did stare at various projects a bit. But my laptop has power again yay. :-)

[silveradept]

Progress is progress. And also, sleep is good for getting back to progress. As is laptop power.

[carenejeans]

The 2nd was a stupid day for me. I'm the only one in my family who knows their way around computers/phones/internet and I had to help Mr. Bookshop, my mom and my brother - who just bought a (bitchin'!) digital camera and KNOWS NOTHING. Sigh. It's like I have a job in IT. I want a raise!!

Anyway, I sat down to write and fell asleep instead. So, alibi sentence for me.

[silveradept]

Auuuugh. Oh, I know that terrible feeling of being the one who has to help fix everybody's tech because you're the person who might know how to operate the buttons.

Sleep is still good after stress. Even if it does mean an alibi sentence.

[sanguinity]

August 2: I wrote some words on the apparently-not-quite finished story, still failing to bring it to a satisfactory final line, damnit. And I also attempted to start a new chapter on the big WIP I've been trying to finish this summer, but only wrote one sentence for that.

So, you know, writing. But not super successful feeling writing. Which is sometimes the way it goes.

[silveradept]

It is, indeed, sometimes how it goes. But writing is writing, and what you've done now will be helpful later.

[shopfront]

Belated thank you for hosting us this month! I may or may not be around much, I drifted off half-way through last month even when I was still writing because RL is being distracting of late, but even if I don't check-in much it's always lovely to see a new name join us :D Checking myself in today for both the 1st and the 2nd. I'm not even sure what I wrote when anymore... but I've been frantically polishing three separate exchange assignments over the last few days so I definitely wrote something for both even if it's all blurring together now, haha.

Edit: and actually, pre-emptively checking in for the 3rd as well if it's not too much trouble, in case I forget to look back in tomorrow for that post.

[silveradept]

Polishing assignments and exchange writing and real life all at once. Sounds very busy.

[magnetic_pole]

Sorry, running late! A page on Friday, hurrah! And a DW comment, so let's count that as a win. M.

[silveradept]

That definitely qualifies!