Your 2013 Writing Goals

[kennyc]

I've been pushing hard, on Growing Up Stories. A lot of editing drafts and re-writing from scratch and even of new writing. I'm currently at about 30K words of what is 'final-stage' drafts. I have 19 pieces/chapters completed and a bunch of errata that will be either a chapter on its own or interspersed between chapters. Still maybe half-a-dozen topics to write/cover. My best guess at this point is that the final version will come in close to 40 - 50k words.

I'm still thrashing a bit in trying to decide if everything I wanted to include is there or not. It's intended really to just cover my growing up on the farm and in a small town up through high school.

The other thing I continue to wrestle with is whether this is just ego-stroking or actually worthwhile. I know it is something that will be interesting/valuable to my family but whether it's of any interest or worth to the more general reader is a completely different question.

P.S. I got close to Stephen Kings 2000 word daily goal today. I was able to do 1700 and have been meeting my goal of 1000/day the last few days so that is a good feeling. Hope saying so doesn't jinx it...I thought I was stuck again today before the words started flowing ....

[kennyc]

Last week was the first week (this year) that I've been able to meet/exceed my daily word goal of 1000 words/day. Mostly I've been in the low to mid 100's words/day. I'm hoping I can keep it up. I know it was helped by my push to finish up Growing Up Stories and it may slow as I approach the finalization of that collection, which is certainly looking more promising at the moment.

It also encourages me to believe that if I were working on longer writings it might be easier to make that Stephen King goal of 2000/day.

At this point I've got almost 40k words for this collection of non-fiction stories. I plan to do some organizing work as well as beginning to pull the book itself together from the pieced today/this week. I need to make decisions about the ordering of the 'chapters' and a few other things. I need to work on/find an appropriate cover image.

Once I have an initial ordering of the stories I'll be able to go through and do an edit for flow/consistency/etc.

It's getting there.

[gmw]

I envy you at the moment Kenny. I've spent months in full-on editing/reviewing/rewriting mode and feeling quite destitute as a result. I've tried to take a break and do some other writing, but it hasn't worked out very well. Maybe if I could squeeze a few more hours out of the day ...

So don't forget to enjoy it while it's happening.

[kennyc]

Well, most of my 'words' are from expanding during editing, though there have been quite a bit of new stuff. Some of the topics were not much more than a title and a sentence or two.

I personally have a bit of a hard time switching between tasks and that's always been the case whether in school, on the job or in writing (marketing/writing/editing/wiping my ass ) etc.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by kennyc

[...]I personally have a bit of a hard time switching between tasks and that's always been the case whether in school, on the job or in writing (marketing/writing/editing/wiping my ass ) etc.

With at least one of those items I strongly suggest you don't try switching!

Yep, definitely single-tracked here. It has it's advantages, but the downside is finding it difficult to take a break.

[kennyc]

Well my goal since I kicked this project in the butt a few weeks ago was to have a draft by the end of September. I think I've either got it or am very close. This is just an alphabetical list of titles/stories/chapters with word counts. It still needs significant editing/polishing and perhaps additional material. I expect it will be about 40K once I do all that, add foreword and possibly afterword.

Growing Up Stories
True stories of a black dirt farm boy

Written/Completed: (37K words)

A Boy’s Regret (1400 words)
A Cotton Tale (2350)
AKA Kenny (700)
Becoming a Man (1100 words)
Black Racer (snakes) (1500 words)
Boom Box on Wheels (675)
Boys will be Boys – (1900)
Daddy (1200)
Death and Despair at the End of the Century (3300 words)
Geeks, Freaks, and other Outcasts (1500)
Grandmama (1260)
Grandpa Sid (1000)
Kay - Sharon Kay Munz (1400)
Mama (800)
Marriage (260)
Of All the Houses (3000)
Party Line (3000 words)
Places and Spaces and Traces (1100)
Ritual – harvesting Chickens (1300 words)
Save me Mr. Wizard! (850)
Seining Crawdads (500)
Space (900)
The Black Rocket (memoir 630)
The Blanket (300)
The Bomb (1600)
The Motorcycle (600)
The Sooner State (1540)
Waking up at the end of the 60’s (1200)
Weaverton Road (1100)

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by gmw

I envy you at the moment Kenny. I've spent months in full-on editing/reviewing/rewriting mode and feeling quite destitute as a result. I've tried to take a break and do some other writing, but it hasn't worked out very well. Maybe if I could squeeze a few more hours out of the day ...

So don't forget to enjoy it while it's happening.

Well, I seem a bit trapped in that editing world now gmw. I tried to put it aside after doing the organizing and work on some new stuff, but it just didn't happen. So I decided to go through and do a full editing pass on the book which I completed after a looooong day yesterday. I added a few hundred words I think so I'm right at about 40k. I also uploaded it to Amazon and created a draft ebook to review/edit/etc. I think I'll now try to put it aside for a week or so (or at least the weekend ) and come back fresh. Barring additions or changes I think it's done.

I did take some time early in the week to put together a draft cover. I'm not sure I'm happy with it but here is the thumbnail, tell me what you think:

[gmw]

Editing obviously happens faster for you than for me ... yet more envy.

I like what I can see of the cover, for my tastes the colours and fonts etc all work well together - simple but effective.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by gmw

Editing obviously happens faster for you than for me ... yet more envy.

I like what I can see of the cover, for my tastes the colours and fonts etc all work well together - simple but effective.

I've still got a ways to go, this was just a first quick pass. Mostly I just wanted to see if the ordering worked since this collection is composed of more or less independent pieces. I made a few corrections to both the ordering and the individual parts. Corrected many typos and grammatical errors but I'm sure there are plenty more left to find.

I'll let it sit for at least a few days and then give it another look.

[VydorScope]

On Monday my 5th book goes to the editor. I have most of my pre-reader input back in, and the book is now around 101k words. Targeting a early/mid December release so that it is on the "New Release" lists Christmas Day and the week after.

My 6th novel is about 15k words written.

[kennyc]

Excellent!

My power just went out...

[kennyc]

Just got power back after 3 hours.....man I'm too dependent on electricity....

[gmw]

Originally Posted by kennyc

[...]I'll let it sit for at least a few days and then give it another look.

Always a good idea, I think.

Originally Posted by VydorScope

On Monday my 5th book goes to the editor. I have most of my pre-reader input back in, and the book is now around 101k words. Targeting a early/mid December release so that it is on the "New Release" lists Christmas Day and the week after.

My 6th novel is about 15k words written.

Congratulations ... and yet more envy.

Originally Posted by kennyc

Just got power back after 3 hours.....man I'm too dependent on electricity....

Yep, most of us are I guess. The only plus side is that it's a good excuse to read.

[kennyc]

I'm letting my memoir work - Growing Up Stories - sit this week and will pick it back up for another edit either late this week or next week.

I've gotten virtually no new words done in the last week of so, til today. I was able to get about 700 words drafted in my essay on Time for my Edges of Science collection. This stuff is way harder that just making up shit about my childhood.
I spent some time working on covers for various works/collections/books so not altogether lost but few words generated.

I've been floundering though more that just not getting the work done. Today I finally just picked something and dug in.....this is how the work gets done.

Hope everyone is doing well. Less than three months left in the year!

[Namekuseijin]

King's 2000 words a day is grossly overrated.

as a minimalist, most of my trouble is getting rid of words ;-)