On the fourth day of Christmas

I re-engineered my previous schedule, and started afresh today as the fourth day of Christmas with a target of 4,000 words.  I knew it would be tough, my biggest daily wordcount challenge so far, and that I'd get little time or peace to do it. So I started with my hour's lunch at work, twenty minutes while I waited in the reception at my local GP practice, finished off with 2 hours uninterrupted tonight, and I've done it! And in fact, I've not only met my wordcount challenge for the day but I've exceeded it. Total wordcount for the day is 4,136 words. The birds were definitely calling!

Tomorrow, on the fifth day, my target is 5,000 words, although I doubt I'll get rewarded with any gold rings. And I'm probably going to have to get even more creative to meet the challenge.

Onwards and upwards,

Lorraine x

12 days of Christmas challenge - getting back on track

After failing to gain a foothold yesterday, I feel I'm getting back on track. I managed 2,037 words tonight and whilst I procrastinated at the beginning, I soon found my pace. So although I've the challenge so far has seen me slip and the stutter, I've managed in total 6,575 words in the last 8 days, but I'm roughly 4 days behind where I should be.

My plan now that I've found my pace again is to treat tomorrow as Day 4 of the challenge and to attempt 4,000 words. It's a big leap from what I've done, but I won't get any words down unless I set my sights high.  I know that in order to succeed I'll have to try and find a place I can be on my own without interruptions, but the likelihood of that happening now, particularly around this Christmas period, is slim to none. I guess I'll just have to find a quiet place in my mind.  Fingers crossed that it works.

Wearing the wrong footwear

I tried to get a foot hold, but I'm obviously wearing the wrong footwear tonight. Only managed 441 words and god was it painful!  I'm tired, and just not feeling it tonight, so I'll try again tomorrow.

Trying to get off the slippery slope

Last week I embarked on a wordcount challenge which I called the 12 days of Christmas challenge.  The main crux of the challenge was to write 78,000 words in 12 days right up to the twilight hours of Christmas Eve.

I'm sorry and both glad to say that I failed to get past day 3 of the challenge. I had a very good reason why I stopped at day 3 - an agent interested in seeing the full manuscript of Delve. Woo Hoo! And so for the next two days, I set about turning the nuts and bolts on my manuscript to give both Delve and myself as a writer the best chance possible to secure representation.

I do not know if this latest development will help me to achieve my Christmas wish, but what I do know is that since I've subbed the full manuscript, my determination on the wordcount challenge I'd set myself has slipped and now I'm skidding down that slope.  A social with friends, a day of feeling rough (not as a result of the social I must add), and the fact that I now have a house guest staying throughout the Christmas and New Year period, have all contributed to this slippery demise. 

I need to find a foot hold so I can climb back up that slope. I will endeavour to try and seek that hold tonight, and finish my day 3 target, roughly over 2,000 words. And though I think my original target of 78,000 words is out of reach now for Christmas Eve, I will continue my daily journey and see where it gets me. 

Now I've just got to hold on tight.  ;)

On the third day of Christmas

On the third day of Christmas, I only managed 947 words of the 3,000 word target. It was not through lack of effort, or want, but merely through distraction. There has been a development on Delve which requires my full attention for now, but I will resume the 12 days of Christmas hopefully tomorrow or the next day, with renewed enthusiasm.

Still my 947 words were clocked in about 30 minutes. Getting faster at least.

Lorraine x

On the second day of Christmas

On the second day of Christmas, I hit my 2,000 word target in at a shave under 2 hours, averaging 1,000 words an hour. I sat in my reclining armchair which is much more comfortable than the kitchen table, with telly off , laptop on lap, and husband out at the pub.

The first hour the words flew as I got into some unexpected dialogue between three of my characters which actually worked well, the second hour was definitely harder and every so often I counted my wordcount to see how much further I had to go. I ended up at 2,034 words. No partridges or turtle doves (can anyone tell me what a turtle dove is, I have no idea), but plenty of words down. 

I must say that this process is quite exhilarating. I'm having to be very disciplined about it, not stopping until I've reached my target, but if I'm ever going to get up to 12,000 words, I need to be hitting more like 2,000 words an hour. There's plenty left in me yet, so I'll keep on trying, and reporting my progress. 

Lorraine x  

On the first day of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas, against a target of 1,000 words, I managed to cross the finish line at a modest 1,150 words. I sat at the kitchen table, with a bottle of Smirnoff Ice for company, and took 5 minutes to roughly plot out the structure of the next few scenes, before getting down to it.

It took me 90 minutes to churn out 1,150 words, at an average rate of 766 words per hour.  A bit slower than I'd like but still the words that came out were pretty decent, and brought me to a close on Chapter 4 and into the opening scene of Chapter 5.

So day one is at a close, and I'm glad to say I haven't yet spotted a partridge in a pear tree. I had a tree in my scene, a big oak tree but no birds.