What are you working on right now?

I'm planning. How on earth to show with little telling the internal conflicts going on within my two protagonists. That is a tricky one. I'm discovering through outlining, that this will take a lot of words. I wonder if this is normal. I wonder if it is normal to take so much more space showing these internal conflicts throughout the story's timeline, than simply telling them through dialogue. Hmm. Challenging.
 
I will hit 40,000 words this weekend, about half way through my crime thriller. The story has regular flashbacks, each of which questions what the reader thinks is happening (or thought happened). Hopefully, by the halfway stage they will be uneasy about making any assumptions. Flashbacks can be a tricky prospect, but I'm having a lot of fun writing this novel and trying to manipulate readers.
 
In a few weeks (knock on wood), I'll be 25% through the rough draft of--hopefully--my first novel. It's been tough getting into a steady routine, though, what with moving, health problems, and helping out the family business. But I feel good about what I've written. I wrote a 45,000 word fanfic a few years back that taught me a lot. It was left unfinished, but it gave me the confidence dive into the novel.
 
I've planned out a four book epic fantasy tale and am close to halfway through.

Book one runs to around 230,000 words and is closing on completion of 2nd draft. Book two runs to 250,000 words and is sitting sullenly in 1st draft.
 
DelActivisto said:
That's huge! Do you have a publisher lined up yet?
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I don't. I made a half-hearted attempt to secure an agent last year, sending maybe a dozen enquiries, but set it aside when none of them fell over themselves to lavish me with praise. ;)

Once the 2nd draft of the first volume is finished, I might give it another go...but I might not. Right now, I'm actually entirely happy to continue telling the tale rather than get involved in the emotional roller-coaster of marketing the damned thing.
 
Shorewalker said:
I've planned out a four book epic fantasy tale and am close to halfway through.

Book one runs to around 230,000 words and is closing on completion of 2nd draft. Book two runs to 250,000 words and is sitting sullenly in 1st draft.
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Holy toledo! How long did that take you, if I may ask?
 
Mike Donoghue said:
Holy toledo! How long did that take you, if I may ask?
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Started book one in May 2015. First draft took me a year. Book two was started in May 2016 and finished at the end of June this year.

I work around 55-60 hours a week on my business, so this little endeavour has stolen pretty much all of my down-time. Can't remember when I last sat down in front of the television...
 
Shorewalker said:
Started book one in May 2015. First draft took me a year. Book two was started in May 2016 and finished at the end of June this year.

I work around 55-60 hours a week on my business, so this little endeavour has stolen pretty much all of my down-time. Can't remember when I last sat down in front of the television...
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Wish I had that tenacity. I'd probably have 2 books written already! :eek:
 
Shorewalker said:
Started book one in May 2015. First draft took me a year. Book two was started in May 2016 and finished at the end of June this year.

I work around 55-60 hours a week on my business, so this little endeavour has stolen pretty much all of my down-time. Can't remember when I last sat down in front of the television...
Click to expand...

Good for you! How much time you able to eke out a night?
 
Mike Donoghue said:
Good for you! How much time you able to eke out a night?
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I figure I get around two, sometimes three hours a day in front of the screen. I snatch whatever time I can and have learned to write in short stretches. Sometimes I produce one sentence. Other times it's a paragraph.

So long as I have the discipline to give up that time, I know that the story will get there eventually.
 
Thanks to chrons, I have come into the habit of writing at least 400 words a day on my current novel(ette). Hit 30k words the other day, which feels like a milestone. It takes me about 20 minutes to get 400 words, which means I might increase the count a bit. I started at 300.

It's a scifi thing, with software that is developed more like a plant than a program, dreams, and a forest fire. Very enjoyable to write! The daily word count seems to work for me, at least when it is this low.

It means that I'm not so active here for the moment, and I have stopped doing the monthly challenges, but they were a huge part of what kicked this off! I am forever thankful to Chronicles for that. This is a great place to get inspiration. I want to post an excerpt in the crits forum, but for the moment I am happily writing away, thinking it might not be that bad. I just want to enjoy the illusion for a bit longer. :X3:

And just to add to that, it's my second novel, but the previous one feels more like a writing excercise than a novel, and it does not seem finished in so many ways.
 
Well, I was at 6600... now I'm at... 4400.

Yeah... had to make changes... went the wrong direction. 2000 words later though, I'm back on track! :)
 
Haven't actually done any writing in a while. With working 50-60 hours/week at work and enjoying time with the kids, all my free time has gotten sucked up elsewhere. Hoping to sit down soon and reread everything I've written so far (approx. 20,000 words) and see where the threads lead. Glad to see everyone is doing well, though!
 
I've type 'End' on my third novel! Red Creek comes in at 68k words, and I expect to add a couple more thousand in draft two, since I left some skinny parts, and I know where I wanted to go back and add. This was an interesting. No firm outline, but a great idea of the story in my head. I started August 27th, and finished October 30th, so pretty solid consistency. In there, I also did a 7500 word short story. I haven't read any of it back, and did no edits as I went. I just wrote the book.

My new thing has been consistency and schedule. At 6 AM I'm doing a quick session, which usually ends up at about 300 words. Then after work, dog walk, and any running around, I do another session, typically before dinner. And that takes about an hour where I work toward hitting 1K. In doing this since the start of August, I've written 96k words, so this has been working for me. I think there were two days I did zero writing, other than a couple I couldn't while on holidays.

I'm working on a secret project now, and am working on a full outline. Every chapter gets about 200 words in what happens. The whole story is planned, and the in-depth outline is coming. This is a great test for me, and i look forward to seeing how it goes. (this will be my 5th novel)

But for NaNo, I am heading back to The Event sequel, The Escape, and it sits at 37k going into the month. I plan on finishing this book in November!

So, by the end of November, my 4th novel will be completed.

And for anyone wondering what I do with these books, ask no more. The Event is coming out Feb 2018, and I plan on releasing The Escape, alongside it. Cover is done on book one....and I love it!
 
Why? I don't know.

But I suddenly "put down" my current wip, and have wrote 3k words on a short story today - a horrible tale of lies and murder, that suddenly took over my mind!
 
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