Marie Alice Writes & Reads

Diary of a writing project. Day 79-80-81: Cold

This week word count goal: 62 500 words

Day 79
Word count so far: 42 923 words

I love rainy days… except in December.

I grew up with snowy December, see. Building snow fort and snowman, going down a snowy little hill side on a crazy carpet, we called them.

The little town we choose to raise our kids is more to the South, so of course, less snow. But still, I live in Canada. And in December, in Canada, snow is supposed to be happening. Not rain.

Nevertheless, when its time to write, I find rain very soothing, very inspiring. It quiets down everything else and words find their way with a little more ease.

Not that I’m hoping for more rainy December days, non! But if I could capture that mood and use it every time it’s time to write, maybe I could catch up on my deadline…

Day 80
Word count so far: 43 678 words

Chinook

Chinook is a wind. It leaves on the East side of the Rocky Mountains.

When the Chinook blows, the snow melts and winter coats are not needed anymore. It feels, I am told, like spring, even in the middle of the coldest of winter’s.

Today, a little cousin of that friend came by, dragging clouds and wet leafs all over the place.

It was a windy, weird evening. A perfect evening to cozy up with a good manuscript about ghosts and mystries to finish!

Day 81
Word count so far: 44 513 words

It’s back to revising what has been written. I looove revising, refining everything, working on the sentences until it sounds better…

Oh yes, I’m perfectly aware that some of those very early revisions might end up in the trash. But certainly not all of it.

At least, I’m getting some work done this week. It’s slow, but way better than the past few weeks combine I think.

Too early to tell if the writing motivation is fully back on track.

One thing is sure, Christmas is coming and with it, a whirlwind of family obligations (yeah, that’s the exact right word, obligations).
The writing routine will suffer a little, but for my own sanity, I will certainly keep it up.
Count on my side of the family to make me want to escape in the wonderful world of words…

Dear writer friends, until next time…

Tested Writing Tip: Micro Writing Goals

One thing I was not expecting while trying to keep up with the writing routine during the holidays: lack of motivation.

It’s a bit of a surprise, because the current writing project is going well. Better than two weeks ago anyway!

I’ve finally wrapped up the missing elements, which made the A plot and the B plot so much stronger. After more than 70 days working on the manuscript, I now know the characters better. They have their distinctive voices and their own agendas.
Like I said, it’s going well.

Don’t get me wrong, the manuscript is not finished. It still needs a TON of work before I can have a beta-reader have the first.
By the way, finding a francophone beta-reader for a 35 to 44 years old writer living far for it all is Hard. Still looking, still looking…

Back to the lack of motivation and the writing tip that helps me deal with it.

I’ve read in countless blog posts. In essence, they all say this: to overcome the lack of motivation, one must identify the source.

What seems to be the problem here, officer?

Ok, in this case, the source is clear. As previously stated, the structure, the keys moments, the plot twist and so on and so forth are figured out. Nothing more to discover, see. The sparks of novelty, they have vanished.

I can’t help but feeling a bit… bored. Not by the story, by the work left to do.
Not that I don’t like to write. I love it.

Plus, it’s December, and I have a kid now. I therefore want to do more stuuf to make it extra special for kiddo.

Baking cookies, reading cozy mystery novels, watching the cozy fire after reading too many bedtime stories, decorating, wrapping up presents, trying in vain to make my front porch look like a Pinterest dream; those sort of things.

Non-ambitious, non-important, non-deadline things.

It goes so fast, the best time of the year…

Micro Writing Goals

I still want to meet my deadline for this project. But I also NEED to relax, breath and forget about how awful November was in real life.

Changing my strategy a bit, I still keep my writing routine, but I set Micro Writing Goals during the day as well. When I have time, of course.

For a half-hour, I try to write at least a 100 words.

15 minutes, 50 words.

Since it’s not many words, I now write every single day, in order to try and write at least 2 000 words a week (when I should be writing 7 500 words!).

Often, the micro writing goals leads to a good writing session.

Other times, I’m just a proud little crazy writer on a quest, happy to have push through one more time, simply to get a couple hundred words on the page.

I hope this post helped. If you have tips and tricks, and if you want to share, please do so down there in the comments.

Dear writer friends, until next time!