Oh, I know. Better than gold. But so hard to get people to follow through on.
Thanks for the guidance!
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I finally managed to write a few hundred words yesterday. Itās not much but Iāll take it. Maybe the Easter break will be more amenable.
Do you find you have different mindsets for different types of writing? Iāve had no trouble with game writing, but finding the right mentality for fiction has been tough lately.
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I realized yesterday that some of my writing energy went into the Blood on the Clocktower game here on the forums. Itās a roleplaying game and for much of my 20s and early 30s all of my writing was channeled into that hobby.
It was quite eye-opening, maybe it will lead to some inspiriration for other writing.
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I think āfindingā is misleading. Itās more of a fake it until you make it situation, or in other words, ābutt in chair hands on keyboard.ā
Iāve found it feels like cultivation and momentum. At first you push really hard and get very little out of it. But if you keep pushing, things start to flow. And if you keep pushing, the mindset finally takes over and you may, if you are lucky, one day āfindā (read: cultivate) flow.
It takes longer than you may expect? But every minute you tough it out, hard-to-perceive momentum is building.
My two cents :T
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Okay, Iām at 28k words right now. Novel must be finished, edited, and off to the professional editor in a week at absolute most, and I have a major English paper due on the exact same day, so no more wasting time on little details and lots more putting fingers on keys to finish this thing.
Letās do this.
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After some time off (recovering from moving, recovering from physical illness, and trying to get through all the Libertarian Futurist Society nominees for Best Novel), Iāve finally been able to pick up my current writing project for Steve Jackson Games. Currently Iām working through the peer review comments; that should be done in a few days, and then I have the rest of April, and perhaps part or all of May, to do more substantial revision.
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I hit 37k words today. A good day of writing (about 7k), for sure, but I have to pick up the pace.
Tomorrowās goal is to be at least at 50K. Ideally more.
Man, I hate deadlines.
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āI love the whooshing sound they make as they fly past.ā
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Here I thought you were talking about Canadian geese until I actually read Marx post.
Keep at it @Marx you can do it.
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42K at the end of today. Not bad, but not good enough. Going to have to pull a long night tomorrow, and then a VERY long night Wednesday to make sure this gets done.
Still. Progress. That always feels nice.
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Iām impressed by the amount of writing you got done in the last few days 
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52K words. And one, teeny, tiny problemā¦
I donāt know how Iām going to conclude the story. I have about 10K words to go (will be finished tomorrow, because thatās the last day I have to finish it!), and I have to wrap it up, and I donāt know exactly howā¦ downside to being a pantser rather than a planner.
Going to stop for the night, start again early tomorrow, see if inspiration strikes me.
Still havenāt started the stupid 30% essay I have due on Friday, and I have a 10-8 shift to work. I might ask my boss if I can bring my laptop to work that day to write while Iām not taking out curbside pickupsā¦ that probably wouldnāt go over well. Maybe if itās slow I can take off earlyā¦ gah. Stupid English course.
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62K words this morning. Just have the climax and the denouement to write. Then a short break for a Twinkie for lunch, and then editing until I send it to my editor tonight.
(No, Bot, I will not let others join the conversation because I want everyone to feel free to respond whenever they want but that applies to me too! Gosh!)
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Congratulations 
My plans for writing will be postponed once again until after I have done taxes next week. The returns have the best hourly pay I have ever had ā¦
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Okay, last post for at least a week:
Final draft is 67,405 words. Doing a quick editorial pass, and then sending it on to the editor in an hour or two.
Novel 1 for 2021 (and Novel 7 total) is done. Well, the really hard part is done. Everything past this point is just polish. Iām going to take a week or two off, and then start Novel 2.
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Nice going!
Iām not physically writing my story but have been mulling over various things in my head, which is another kind of progress. I hope!
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Okay, had a lovely few days of not writingā¦ time to start Novel 8.
Working title is āSomething Spacey This Way Comesā, but thatās definitely not going to be the title.
Itās going to be a heist story, focusing on three characters who live on a planet named New Isfahan. New Isfahan grows corn (Mega-maize), and the story opens with the planetary defenses being totally overwhelmed by an evil empire (tentatively called āThe Korinthian Empireā, with ties back to ancient Greece, who are uniting the scattered human worlds together āfor their own goodā-kinda deal). The three protags are a hacker/thief (Vera), a environmental/human-rights lawyer (Ash), and a starfighter pilot who was on leave when the attack happened and feels personally responsible (Kenzie).
I still need to figure out the MacGuffin for the story (the thing that theyāre going to steal to undermine their new overlords), but Iāve already started sketching out the heist itself and figuring out how things will appear to go wrong (or how they will actually go wrong and how they will recover). Heists are enormously fun to write after all the groundwork is lain, but holy hell are they a tonne of work to initially plot.
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Secret project I canāt talk about has just hit 3,200/5,000, first draft deadline Monday and I have no weekend commitments so this is achievable. The words come easily, the detailed content behind them Iām having to flog out of myself; Iām feeling weirdly non-inventive right now.
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I think this is one of the ways that remote gaming has actually affected me. When I was gaming in person, there was more opportunity for casually chatting about ideas in the before, after and breaks, and that sounding board helped me get things moving again. Online it just doesnāt seem to work quite the same.
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Yes. When this started some of the groups Iām in would get straight down to the game as soon as everyone was there; I think most of them now have a more Wharty style of having a bit of general chat and then starting the game when the conversation moves that way (more or less what an in-person session would do).
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