Sunday, April 2, 2017

Update Through March

When we did this last time:

As of 2/1, the four WIPs along with my plans for them, are:
    •    The Faux Princess: 90 956 words, sent to beta reader Jan 30;
    •    The Voyages Home: 2500 words, no change; draft complete by April 30;
    •    Princess (A Beckie and Ian story): 51 000 words, no change; draft complete by April 30, and
    •    Low Places (A Beckie and Ian story): 65 932 words, still on track to complete draft by Feb 15.

As of 3/1, the four WIPs, along with my plans for them, are:
  •    The Faux Princess: 90 954 words Sent to beta reader Jan 30; notes came back by 2/12 and have lain waiting for Low Places to be complete. Goal is to have it ready to publish by 3/31.
    •    The Voyages Home: 8382 words; draft complete by April 30;
    •    Princess (A Beckie and Ian story): 51 000 words, no change; draft complete by April 30, and
    •    Low Places (A Beckie and Ian story): 81 365 words; failed to complete draft by Feb 15. The goal is now to have the draft by 3/15, and on to my long suffering beta ready by 3/31.

So, how did I do?

As of today (4/2), the four WIPs, along with my plans for them, are:
    •    The Faux Princess: 108 807 words. Going over notes from my reader. Complete revisions complete by April 20; return to beta by April 30.
    •    The Voyages Home: 13834 words; draft complete by May 15;
    •    Princess (A Beckie and Ian story): 51 000 words, no change; draft complete by April 30, and
    •    Low Places (A Beckie and Ian story): 96 958 words Draft completed 3/11. Proof and send to beta by April 15.

Here’s March’s work:




I wrote 46 098 original words in March, averaging 1487 per day, with nine days of writing nothing and two more of not very much. The short title I worked on is at the right.

What happened?
I finished the draft of Low Places a couple days sooner than I expected. Since my reader's comments on The Faux Princess arrived weeks ago, I set Low Places aside to steep, if you will, and went to the comments and suggestions on Faux Princess. Turns out she liked a lot of it. However, about a twenty-thousand word chunk at the beginning was crap. (That’s my translation, reading between her lines; she’d never say such a thing.) She offered suggestions about what struck her as either unbelievable or just wrong.

I considered the problems she saw and largely agreed with them. Fixing them required (in my mind, at least, and I’m the writer) focusing on a couple of the not main characters, and admitting that I’ve written an “buddy-love” story and upping the focus on the second of the two co-heroes.

All that requires words. While a few changes called for a deletion, most didn’t, as you can see from the names in the right-hand column: some 13 000 original words in six days. Since the total word count for Faux rose by almost 18 000,  there were some I missed or didn’t count as original. The perils of editing, I suppose.

The benefit: when my reader returned the revised section, the top level note was “Loved it.” Now to improve the rest of it.

While I work through those edits, I also need to proof Low Places, correct things I find there and send it off for my beta reader’s opinions.

I'll be adding to The Voyages Home, too, and  worrying the plot holes in Princess to try and get that on track. Check back and see how I did.

As always, comments and opinions welcome.

The spreadsheet: Created by Svenja. See svenjaliv.com for more info and resources, including a free online word meter. All images are © 2011-2016 SvenjaLiv (http://svenjaliv.com).