It’s my semi-final milestone of my Operation 50/50. What’s the deal? Writing 50 scenes in 50 days.
It’s *almost* over guys! I only have two scenes left! YAY!
The official due date of Operation 50/50 is Friday, April 15th. Being the CPA’s daughter that I am, technically you still have until Monday, April 18th at 11:59 pm to get your taxes done. Good luck! In the meantime, please keep my poor father in your prayers this weekend. Ha.
Once again I used my green pen and legal pad for writing but I did get a chance to do type-ins for each scene so I have a word count tally. So let’s just cut the to chase shall we? How did it go?
Wrote draft for scenes 42-28
Total for this week’s Milestone #5: 4532
Total for Operation 50/50: 24,733 words
Currently with the words that I already had in past revisions, this is pushing my YA novel over the 64K mark. But this is *not* the final tally of my Operation 50/50 since I still have two scenes left. Be sure to check back on Tuesday where I’ll wrap up Operation 50/50 with a final tally and all the things that I’ve learned during the last 50 days!
The things I learned this week:
Longhand writing rocks. It helps me with my “perfectionist” tendencies. So instead of hitting the backspace key and erasing everything when I’m drafting on the computer, I can just skip a few lines and start writing again. This way, I can at least see what I had written instead of it being lost in delete word heaven. I think for my next book project, I’m going to try and do all of my draft in longhand first.
Any of you tackling your own Operation 50/50? What was your progress this week? Other writers, what are some of your “tricks of the trade” of not getting distracted with editing when writing new draft? Do you just plow through? Or do you have some other kind of thing that helps you?
Yay – you’re almost there! It’s been fun to watch all your progress! :) I pretty much stay focused.
Yay, go you! I’ve been back on track this week with Operation 50/50 and doing pretty well. Actually, I think I’m going to keep going… partly because I missed a week in there, but also because it’s worked so well for me doing a scene a day. Thanks!
I always write my drafts longhand. Only a scene at a time, then I type them up. But it helps me to be much more relaxed and creative, and to not feel as pressured.
I really should try long hand again. My goal this week is to work through some exercises in “THe Fire of Fiction” by Donald Maass to try to strenghten some of my characters and scenes. So maybe I’ll try long hand for that!
Keep up the great work!!! I wish I was doing so well with my ROW80 progress. I get distracted so easily. Darn internet.
Yay for longhand writing! It is awesome! I write my entire novel that way first, though I do enter my work at the beginning of each day into my computer. And wow, only two scenes left! You are cruising along.
You’ve gotten SO much written so far! I know you’re not 100% done yet but I’m glad this was such a success for you. :)
I write a lot by hand. I’ve been mixing it up with my draft but when I write by hand, I also tend to stop thinking too hard. I feel like we are such similar writers!
Nice progress!
Laura: That’s great that you can stay focused. :) I get a little distracted at times.
Anne: Ha. It’s funny you say that because I’ll still need and go back and do some more draft writing on the scenes where I just jotted down ideas. We can continue the stride together! :)
Margo: You should definitely try it. One good thing is that you are not on the computer so you won’t be tempted to visit the evil Internet.
Heather: I’m really feeling this longhand writing thing. At first I didn’t like it because I type fast and my hand didn’t move to match my thoughts, but now I find that it’s helpful to slow down my thinking a bit.
Ghenet: Yep. Still have a ways to go but I’m happy with the progress. I definitely think having this done in 2011 is doable now.
Karen: Thanks! Operation 50/50 has helped me get my rewrite on the last 1/3 of my novel done.
Yay! Your progress is inspiring! Makes me want to get my revisions done now.
WooHoo!!!! you are dashing to the finish line! I am inspired!
Andrea: Thanks! I hope that your revisions are going good with your current project.
Saba: I’m glad that you were inspired. Hope you are getting some writing done as well. :)
Oooh, let’s see… I sometimes DO edit during a draft. I’m a pantser and if I realize along the way something isn’t going to work because I forgot – let’s say the antagonist (which I have actually done) – I go back and weave that character or plot point in so that everything will run smoothly from there. If it’s not as big of a thing I keep a separate Word file with notes that I refer back to. :D
Lisa I’m really in awe of pantsers. Ha. I really couldn’t do it. But weaving and editing during a draft? Oh, yeah. I can do that! :)