To the Sixes

Facing Fearful Odds -- Book 1: Walk the Earth (10 chapters planned)

Chapter 6 is 100% and in GOLD BETA (35,976 words)
Chapter 7 is 100% and in GOLD BETA (29,804 words)
Chapter 8 is ~15% done. (1,544 words)
Chapter 9 is 40% done.
      * 9-A is 100% done and is UNDERGOING BETA (11,481 words)
      * 9-B is 10% done (1,878 words)
      * 9-C is 5% done (489 words)
Chapter 10 is 5% done. (1,147 words)


Facing Fearful Odds -- Book 2: Fire and Rain (13 chapters planned)

Chapter 11 is 25% done. (7,073 words)
Chapter 12 is 5% done. (1,738 words)


Total Project Status as of 9/1/2009: Book 1 is 50% done, with five chapters remaining. (72,030 words)
Total Project Status as of 10/1/2009: Book 1 is 56% done, with a little over four chapters remaining. (106,859 words) (+ 34,829)
Total Project Status as of 11/1/2009: Book 1 is 67% done, with a little over four chapters remaining. (113,544 words) (+ 6,685)
Total Project Status as of 12/1/2009: Book 1 is 72% done, with three chapters remaining. (121,097 words) (+ 7,553)
Total Project Status as of 1/1/2010: Book 1 is 75% done, with three chapters remaining. (135,392 words) (+14,295 words)
Total Project Status as of 2/1/2010: Book 1 is 75% done, with three chapters remaining. (146,215 words) (+10,823 words)
Total Project Status as of 3/1/2010: Book 1 is 80% done, with two and half chapters remaining. (162,293 words) (+16,078 words)

Comments: February was, as predicted, a pretty average month. While I finished Chapter 7, I did part the first sub-chapter of 9 instead doing the one-shot Chapter 8. I got a goodly amount of writing done on portions of Book 2 and 3, however. However, I will say that March 2009 will see the end of primary production of Book 1. Or, to put it more plainly...

March is the month I finish the first complete draft of Facing Fearful Odds: Walk the Earth.

Come April 1st, all ten chapters of Book 1 will be done.

Which is pretty awesome, but I won't congratulate myself until they're actually DONE done. Things are looking up, though!  :)

FFO: Chapter 7-C is inching along. I'm starting to realize just how much character development I still need to unpack from Chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 7 may -- emphasis on 'may' -- end up needing five parts total (so 7-A, -B, -C, -D, and -E) to get all the pieces in place for Book 1's grand finale. I'm trying my damnedest to avoid that, though. Otherwise Chapter 7 as a whole could total 50,000+ words!   D:

Taking Sights: I've started the process of re-reading Taking Sights (the typos and spliced commas, they burn!!) in preparation for re-starting production on it. I've decided that I need to revise my existing story outline. The current outline of Taking Sights and its sequel would require about 20+ more chapters, or about 200,000 words, to complete. That's at least nine months of work from me. I'd like to whittle it down to core themes and character arcs. Moreover, some of the plot stuff I had planned seems far too overblown now to be plausible, especially in light of where I'm realizing the characters are going to end up going at the end game. Anyway... it's all very nebulous so far. I'm holding off on the heavy lifting of plot reconstruction until I can devote my full attention to Taking Sights, and that won't be until Book 1 of FFO is done.

New AtLA One-shot: I got bit by a plot bunny and now I'm writing another AtLA one-shot. It'll be a fairly short fic, about 8,000ish words I'm guessing. It's too early to say any firm plot details, but the fic will be centered on Princess Yue. It's working title is "Mere Darkness."

Today's project is Chapter 11 of Facing Fearful Odds.

Word totals will be posted in half hour increments, as per SOP.

Starting count for today is 4,006 words

* * * Word count goal for today is 3,000 words


Starting Time is 3:05 PM

Goal for 3:35 PM -- 500 more words - 4,231
Goal for 4:05 PM -- 500 more words
Goal for 4:35 PM --
Goal for 5:05 PM --

I'm going to go back to writing by long-hand. I'm getting too distracted by surfing the internet.

Facing Fearful Odds -- Book 1: Walk the Earth (10 chapters planned)

Chapter 1 is 100% and UNDERGOING OMEGA EDIT. (11,126 words)
Chapter 2 is 100% and UNDERGOING OMEGA EDIT (15,403 words)
Chapter 3 is 100% and UNDERGOING OMEGA EDIT. (7,392 words)
Chapter 4 is 100% and in GOLD BETA. (16,416 words)
Chapter 5 is 100% and in GOLD BETA (27,041 words)
Chapter 6 is 100% and is UNDERGOING BETA (35,976 words)
Chapter 7 is 50% done. (18,135 words)
Chapter 8 is 0% done. (98 words)
Chapter 9 is 15% done. (2,658 words)
Chapter 10 is 5 % done. (1,147 words)

Total Project Status as of 9/1/2009: Book 1 is 50% done, with five chapters remaining. (72,030 words)
Total Project Status as of 10/1/2009: Book 1 is 56% done, with a little over four chapters remaining. (106,859 words) (+ 34,829)
Total Project Status as of 11/1/2009: Book 1 is 67% done, with a little over four chapters remaining. (113,544 words) (+ 6,685)
Total Project Status as of 12/1/2009: Book 1 is 72% done, with three chapters remaining. (121,097 words) (+ 7,553)
Total Project Status as of 1/1/2010: Book 1 is 75% done, with three chapters remaining. (135,392 words) (+14,295 words)

Comments: December was a surprisingly productive month, especially considering the last week and a half have been eaten up by holiday family stuff. I didn't even realize I had managed to run over ten thousand words until I added up the totals for Chapter 7-A and -B. While December doesn't match the outrageous productiveness of September's monthly total, it does warm my heart to have gotten over the OH MY GOD WHY WON'T THIS CHAPTER F___ING DIE that was two months spent on writing Chapter 6.

Chapter 7 is coming along swimmingly, although it's a tale that's grown in the telling. Originally I had the outline broken into 3 parts. However, considering the hell I put the characters through in Chapters 5 and 6, I found I needed more time to for the cast to decompress and emotionally deal with what they've been through. So now Chapter 7 will be four parts long -- A, B, C, and D.


(P.S. I'm posting this month's review early because I don't want to be blogging on New Years.)

Chapter 7-A of FFO is almost done. I just need to type up the longhand version of the final scene, plus make a few revisions to set up stuff for the outline I just wrote for 7-B. I have to say that after the ultra mega drama of Chapters 5 and 6, it's been hard for me to write a low-key chapter. I keep wanting to write a cliffhanger where someone finds out they're pregnant or where Sokka gets hit in the face by a small meteorite.

But enough of that.

In the past I've talked about my beta process, but I've never really talked about how I revise the pre-beta stuff. So here are two versions of the same scene from "Praise Be to Nero's Neptune", my quirky shipping AU that I'll finish someday. Aside from the most obvious change (switching from present tense to past tense) you can see how I reword stuff and just generally trim things down.

( Evolution of a Scene )

After much dithering, NaNoWriMo projects and whatnot I'm going to finish Chapter 6-C of FFO.

Today.

Current Word Count: 1,997


Goal for 11:45am = 400 more words.2,214 (+217)

Word Count for 6:32pm: 3,297
Word Count for 7:02pm: 3,863
Word Count for 7:32pm: 4,418
Word Count for 8:02pm: 4,456
Word Count for 8:32pm: 4,862
Word Count for 9:02pm:
Word Count for 9:32pm: 5,287
Word Count for 10:02pm: 5,319


Well, it's not finished, but 3,322 words isn't bad for one day and I've finally gotten this chapter-long fight scene underway.

It's almost November, which means National Novel Writer's Month is about to begin.

Now, originally, I was planning on have you guys -- my loyal (or intermittent) blog readers -- pick the 50,000 fanfic I was going to write out of three options. Alas, Facing Fearful Odds still isn't done, so I can't take November off.

But here's what I'm going to do in November. I am going to finish Facing Fearful Odds: Book 1... and then, however many words I have left out of that 50,000, I'm going to start writing Book 2 and KEEP WRITING until I do 50,000 words total for FFO in November.

Yes, yes. I know this isn't quite in the spirit of NaNoWriMo, but it's what I'm doing it, so screw the rules. I'm going to write 50,000 words worth of prose for Facing Fearful Odds in November. I'm going to finish Book 1, because it has less than fifty thousand words left in it, and then I'm going to start Book 2.

This does NOT mean I am abandoning Taking Sights. After I've hit my 50,000 word goal and the final chapters of FFO are away at the beta, I fully intend to begin writing the final ten chapters of Taking Sights.  I've said several times on this blog that I would finish Taking Sights after I had FFO: Book 1 done... and I'm still saying that. Once Taking Sights is done, I'll be going back to work on FFO: Book 2, carrying on from whatever chapter/point I'm at whichI finally hit that 50,000 word goal for NaNoWriMo.

So here's what I'm going to be doing. Tomorrow, on November 1st, I'll be making a new sticky post at the top of this blog. It will track my word count for NaNoWriMo. I will be updating it each day, be it that I write ten thousand words in one sitting or zero for a whole day. Any words of encouragement, threats, or random NaNoWriMo-related queries can be put there.


Tomorrow is November 1st. The end of Facing Fearful Odds: Book 1 is at hand...

Facing Fearful Odds -- Book 1: Earth (10 chapters planned)
     Chapter 1 is 100% and UNDERGOING OMEGA EDIT. (11,131 words)
     Chapter 2 is 100% and UNDERGOING OMEGA EDIT (15,375 words)
     Chapter 3 is 100% and in GOLD BETA. (7,392 words)
Total Project Status as of 9/1/2009: Book 1 is 50% done, with five chapters remaining. (72,030 words)
Total Project Status as of 10/1/2009: Book 1 is 56% done, with a little over four chapters remaining. (106,859 words) (+ 34,829)


COMMENTS: September was the most productive month yet for Facing Fearful Odds. I finally finished Chapter 5, and now I'm on the road to complete Chapter 6 within the week. By the end of October I should hopefully have Chapters 7 and 8 done as well *crosses fingers*. I also split 6-A into two parts because a 20,000+ word update is a lot to ask people to read.

As I'm nearing the end of Book 1, I'm beginning to get a sense of the hidden themes in the story I've written ("Loss of identity") verses the themes I started off intending to write ("Optimism as a moral choice"). After finishing Book 1's rough draft, I'm going to have to go back to the beginning and develop that hidden theme so it's more concrete in the finished product.

So the way to Book 1's finale looks clear and I'm trucking along. The end is in sight! Rejoice!

Still have to finish up Book 1 of Facing Fearful Odds, but here's a glimpse of the NEXT project on my block.    :)

Taking Sights: The Final Chapters (10 chapters planned)
     Chapter 16-B, The Great Classroom 2-A Apple Peel-Off, is 50% done. (4,746 words)
     Chapter 17, Doing Whatever a Spider Can, is 10% done. (2,407 words)
     Chapter 18, Impact Tremors, is 20% done. (3,145 words)
     Chapter 19, Meeting Tiffany Grant, is 5% done. (1,359 words)
Taking Sights will end with Chapter 26, but a new story will continue it. The title of the sequel can't be shared yet, as it's something of a spoiler for the events of the final four chapters of Taking Sights. When I'm done with this block of ten chapters, I'll be posting them at a rate of one every week.

Today's project is Chapter 8 of Facing Fearful Odds.

Word totals will be posted in half hour increments, as per SOP.

Starting count for today is 531 words

* * * Word count goal for today is 5,000 words


Starting Time is 1:45 PM

Goal for 2:15 PM -- 500 more words 836 (+ 305)
Goal for 2:50 PM -- 500 more words 1,050 (+ 314)

     It's not been a terribly productive day so far, and my evening got shot through the head since I wanted to watch the President's speech. Let's see if I can squeeze out something funny for light-hearted Chapter 8, preferably about two thousand words of funny before I go to bed tonight.

Goal for 9:30 PM -- 400 more words 1,537 (+ 487)
Goal for 10:05 PM -- 400 more words 1,654 (+ 117)
   * Break for some emergency research on horse riding....
Goal for 11:11 PM -- 400 more words 2,029 (+ 375)

And I'm done for the night. Not quite a thousand words for this night (+ 979) and the total word count for the day (+ 1,498) is a lot less than I'd hoped for. Hopefully tomorrow will prove more productive.