Write every day! January 2020 - Day 2

[zwei_hexen]

It's lovely to see so many familar and new faces! This is certainly off to a good start. Best of luck to you all with your writing goals.

Tally:
Welcome Post

Day 1: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, mergatrude, mtassarin, nafs, ofmonstrouswords, sanguinity, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme (21/21)

Day 2: china_shop,

Let us know if we missed you or if you didn't check in for a while, so we can add you. Of course joining the fun is possible at any point.

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ysilme here: No tally for me yet for today. I spent part of the day sleeping after coughing uninterruptedly for the whole night, but I'm over the worst now and hope to get some writing in yet today, although this might be just my prompt answer to the first day of the snowflake_challenge. There was some writing-related digital house-keeping at my German blog happening, too, so at least something to do with writing happened today.

sylvanwitch here: I spent much of the afternoon doing prep work for the second half of the school year, creating and/or revising materials and working all the due dates out on the calendar. I got about half of that done and will do the rest tomorrow. I also got the first half of the Bond/Q fic edited, so most of my word count today was taking things out rather than adding them, but I feel it's a stronger story now, and I hope that feeling continues through the second half of the editing tomorrow. Not glamorous work today but necessary.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

where the firelight fades tipped over 45K

(and then I went back to bed, so chapter 7 still isn't done)

[sylvanwitch]

Congrats on that great total word count and good luck on finishing up chapter 7! :-)

[trobadora]

Alibi sentence. I need to figure out how to get going again ...

[sylvanwitch]

Sometimes, when I'm stuck on something or just not feeling it, I'll write fanfiction to get back into the habit of daily words. I'll pick a pairing I adore in a fandom I'm familiar with and just see where the words take me. I'll find a prompt online or ask for someone to give me one, so even that "where do I start?" decision is taken out of my hands. I find that once I've gotten some words out, I am more likely to keep writing on non-fanfiction projects.

I don't know if that would work for you or not, but if you'd like random prompts, hit me up. :-)

[trobadora]

Thanks muchly! I know what I'm supposed to be working on; I just can't seem to get over the hurdle of actually starting. To be fair, I haven't tried very hard yet - no need to stress myself out this early in the year! But I really do need to actually start working on fic again. Maybe you're right and I should just try something completely different first, as a palate-cleanser of sorts?

[sylvanwitch]

If you'd like a prompt or something, let me know. I delight in producing random prompts from my cluttered brain. ;-)

[sanguinity]

Jan 2: A couple of sentences.

[sylvanwitch]

Words were made! This is a good thing. :-) Yay!

[china_shop]

I spent part of the day sleeping after coughing uninterruptedly for the whole night

Oh no! I hope your cough gets better really soon, and you get some good sleep tonight (or last night -- whenever it is for you)! *sends hot lemon, honey and ginger drinks*

most of my word count today was taking things out rather than adding them, but I feel it's a stronger story now

Ah, that's such a good feeling, isn't it? *cheers you on for tomorrow*

Day 3: 564 words on the PWP, and I think the end is in sight, but I have to stop and go do dishes now (and to figure out what the end looks like).

[sylvanwitch]

I often try to resolve the ending of a story I'm unsure of by doing chores, so I relate to your dish-washing here. Did it work? I hope it worked. And thank you for the good wishes, re: impending edits. I have school work to do, and then I'm going to finish editing the story and post it (I hope). Here's to productivity for us both! :-)

[china_shop]

I often try to resolve the ending of a story I'm unsure of by doing chores, so I relate to your dish-washing here. Did it work?

Alas, I've developed the habit of listening to audiobooks while I do dishes, which is ot1h good for my reading, but otoh, not so good for my mulling of stories -- but I got there in the end anyway. ;-)

Congrats again on posting! \o/

[ysilme]

Thanks! This worked, my cough has much lessened and I slept some last night! :o)
I often do the same, too, go doing chores when I need to figure out an end or a difficult scene or so. I hope it worked!

[alexcat]

I got 220 words today... was not terribly proiductive. Meidcal BS kills my writing buzz rather meanly. but 220 words is 220 words!

[sylvanwitch]

220 words are definitely better than none, but I'm very sorry to hear about your medical troubles and hope you're feeling better soon!

[nafs]

Spent about an hour and a half on a writing exercise that I'm hoping will help me figure out the bare bones of what happens in the next large hole in the novel that I need to fill. I started writing out the story as if I was telling it to someone else. Haven't even got halfway yet but I stopped at a point that if I pick it up tomorrow I should be forced to confront the hole before I get more than ten or fifteen minutes in. So six and a half pages of longhand that will hopefully be useful prep.

[sylvanwitch]

That sounds like excellent and necessary ground-work, and I'm wishing you just the right words to fill the hole. Good luck! :-)

[cornerofmadness]

My day was spent working on lectures and removing half of Christmas from Mom's house. She has so much..

I managed 965 words on Come Undone

[sylvanwitch]

That's an excellent word count given the de-holidaying. ;-) Yay!

[cornerofmadness]

thanks

[umadoshi]

600 words, but I don't think I like them very much.

[sylvanwitch]

Ah, yes, I can relate. I hope you find that in the light of a new writing day those words don't look so unlikable. :-)

[yasaman]

Day 2: 445 words on my WIP! And now I will reward myself with playing Breath of the Wild.

[sylvanwitch]

Yay for rewards! I firmly believe in the carrot approach (rewards) over the stick (punishment for failure to write). I hope you have as much success today!

[sierranovembr]

I wrote 341 words on the WIP, and posted the second chapter to AO3 because I have no restraint and require validation asap. :D

[sylvanwitch]

Oh, my, I can definitely relate. There's something heady and exciting about seeing the kudos and comments; it's a zing like none other when I get a notification in my mailbox. I think it has the potential to ruin me for original fic, so I try to be careful about it.

I hope you get LOTS of validation! :-)

[lferion]

Day 2 - 275ish words of notes and research on the piece I started yesterday.

[sylvanwitch]

Words! You made them, and they're taking you places. Yay!

[mtassarin]

I wrote 1226 words, surprising myself with that number! :)
...There's, of course, the little problem of those words not being for the project I was so set on making my main focus in January. They're for a totally random old WIP. I stumbled upon it, I started reading it, then I suddenly knew what should happen next... and then, all those words and no energy to work on the "main focus" project. Oops?

[sylvanwitch]

That's a fabulous word count, regardless of where those words are taking you. I often find that working on something that comes more easily does eventually take me in the direction of the thing I'm avoiding, so I hope the same is true for you. :-)

[auroracloud]

I wrote some poetry! And in the evening I worked a bit on the solarpunk-ish story.

[sylvanwitch]

Yay for poetry and solarpunk-ish things! As always, I wish for you ALL the words! *grins*

[badly_knitted]

Newbie here, so please tell me if I do something I shouldn't.

2 days of writing netted me a solid 2730 words, far more than I was expecting. I write mostly drabbles and short fics for weekly challenges, so that was 2 Torchwood fics for different challenges written and posted, and 7 Doctor Who drabbles which will get posted eventually.

Haven't started writing for day 3 yet.

[sylvanwitch]

Wow! Fantastic word count! And you've got it just right. There's very little to get wrong about this community; we sort of make it a point to be laid-back. But if there's ever any confusion about a check-in comment, we'll let you know. :-) Yay for words! Yay!

[badly_knitted]

Thank you! I came across the community by chance, not exactly sure how now, I've been wandering around so much the past few days, but it seemed like a good place to help me keep to my daily writing goal. I know some days there'll be a lot less writing than I've managed so far, but every word counts.

[ysilme]

Yay for editing and getting prep stuff out of the way! I'm glad that working at the Bond/Q story is going a good way for you. :o) Non-glamorous work totally is necessary, and needs much more recognition in my book!
I was busy yesterday with various shorter, non-fic texts and ended up with 1,3k all together, on top of even more organising and re-posting stuff. So quite a satisfying result.

[sylvanwitch]

That's a fantastic word count! Yay! I'm so glad you're making progress that pleases you.

And yes, the non-glamorous stuff comes with its own quiet reward of feeling productive, so I'll take it.

[silveradept]

Much of my writing was spent giving comments on fic and snowflake challenge introductions. But there were a couple sentences added toward Songfic #2 as well.

[sylvanwitch]

I think we often undervalue the work that goes into responding to other people in our communities; there's an enormous value in human capital there, of course, in terms of cultivating relationships or even just letting someone know he/she/they are being heard. But we somehow don't count that as writing, I suspect, though it may be one of the most fundamental and vital sorts of writing--the kind that communicates, "You are there. I see you." :-)

[silveradept]

That makes sense. It certainly takes time and produces some interesting conversations!

[carenejeans]

I had a busy busy day and at the end I looked at a few of my alibi sentence 'prompts' and went 'augh, can't I just watch TV?' I ended up writing 255 words of free-writing, which isn't very good. But I got a small kernel of insight out of it, so counting it as a win. 8-)

Get better, ysilme!

[sylvanwitch]

Yay for insights, no matter how small the kernel! :-) And yay for words of any number! May you continue to discover insight and find inspiration for putting down words too. :-)

[ysilme]

Thanks! *waves exhaustedly with hankie*