September Marathon, Day 4

I had made grand writing plans for today: be a heathen and skip church to do some extra work (just this week - it's the marathon after all).  But apparently God had other ideas, because I had forgotten it was both a) our turn to bring breakfast for Sunday school, and 2) our week to volunteer in the nursery.

And then we had a playgroup event this afternoon with our son.  Much fun and massive quantities of fried chicken and other picnic foods were had by all.  But no writing.

So I didn't get anything more than my usual writing time.  And in all that I only got about 500 words.  BUT I made progress.  I've been combining and rearranging chunks and I now have the overall general shape and flow of Act I, and everything has been placed into a chapter.  There will be 11 total.  Chapter 7 is done (if I haven't mentioned that yet) and 8 and 9 are largely in place, just need some filling and smoothing.  I know what goes in 10 and 11, and need only to write a few scenes for them.

So my (revised) marathon goal - to get Act I whipped into shape - is partially achieved.  We'll see what I can do at work tomorrow and then tomorrow night.  I'm going in to work late on Tuesday (have to stay late, too, but them's the breaks) so I can stay up tomorrow night and work later than usual, since I'll have the chance to sleep in a bit on Tuesday.  We'll see how far I get, but though I am definitely keeping pressure on myself to keep moving forward, I'm relaxing a little bit with my draconian word count expectations, etc.

Oh!  And I got all my laundry done!  (I've been putting it off for about two weeks, so that's big.  Heehee.)

In her talk yesterday, J.R. Ward said something that made me feel better.  Two things, actually.  The first was that the hardest time she ever had writing was when she was working; holding a full-time job left her hardly any time to write, and she doesn't have kids.  She only managed about 2 hours a day.  So with my 50-55 hours a week and 18-month-old, the fact that I usually manage about 3-4 hours makes me feel pretty darn good.  (Even if I sometimes expect too much of myself - see above.  And even though I don't do anything around the house any more.  And even though I'm likely to c-r-a-s-h next month, or whenever I get this darn draft done and give myself a break.)

She also said she didn't write at all in law school, because the workload was just too high.  So props to you, Jen.  *w*

The second thing she said was in drafting, the important thing was to get the bones of the story down and worry about the details like sensory descriptions and exact clothing and all that stuff later.  Which is kind of what I've been doing lately, and my plan for rewrites was in fact to go through each scene and add that stuff intentionally.  So I feel a little justified. I mean, I totally respect and look up to those people (and I know more than a few) who can work that all in on a first pass - kudos!  But I don't feel like such a hack for not having it in all my scenes yet.  *g*