Writing Wednesday: Taking a Break, Or Not

First, I finished my WiP last week. One day before my latest self-imposed deadline. I had said that once I finished it, I would take a break over the long weekend(and my son’s birthday) before I started planning the next one. Yeah, not so much. I finished the first draft Thursday afternoon and by Thursday night I had decided on and was brainstorming my next project. Apparently I do not know the mean of the term, “break”. I worked on it Friday and a little bit on Saturday, but did actually take a break on Sunday and Monday. Then jumped right back into it Tuesday morning.

I didn’t make out a list of goals last week, but my main one was to finish the first draft. Which I did accomplish. When I checked in on Wednesday, I had written 1310 words. Well, after the ROW80 sprint in the afternoon, a bunch of us decided to get together around 8 that night for some #wordmongering. And I ended the day with 5126 words. Thursday I wrote 4022 words and finished it. It ended up being 88130 words when finished. I’m not sure how happy I am with the ending, but that can always be fixed during revisions.

I ended up writing just a little short of 40,000 words in August. And wrote 28 out of 31 days. That’s an average of about 1321 words for the month, 1415 just counting the days I did write. I know the last two days I wrote had a lot to do with that, and those numbers are quite unusual for me. It took me a total of 83 writing days to finish, although those were over a total of 116 days. Over those 83 days, I averaged about 1060 words a day. So, I know writing 1000 words a day, on average, is definitely doable for me, and I could potentially finish a novel in 90 days. So, I think that will be my goal for the next one.

I already have a good bit of the planning done for the next story. Did some fleshing out of the plot and have dived into the characters’ lives quite a bit. did some character interviews for the first time. Two of the characters were quite open, but the other one had some things he just did not like to discuss. Have some more plotting to do before I will actually start writing though. Hopefully will be done with the plotting by the end of next week though, but we’ll see how that goes.

I also started reading The Fall of Billy Hitchings by Kirkus MacGowan and finished it last night. Now, I’m starting to read Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Well, I haven’t actually started it yet, but have it open on one of my e-reader apps on my phone.

Goals for next week:

• Finish applying the snowflake method to the newest WiP
• work up a blueprint for the WiP
• Be halfway through Gone Girl

 

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Writing Wednesday: Beta Readers

It feels weird not having a check-in to do on Wednesday. But, instead of just taking the day(or even the week) off from posting to the blog, I come with a question. Or more likely a few. About beta readers. How do you find them? What kinds of things do you want them to look for in your writing? How long do you expect them to take to get back to you? And lastly, anyone want to be a beta reader for me?

I’m not quite ready for beta readers yet, but pretty close. I’m just about finished with the novella I’m writing. Once the first draft of that is finished, I’m going to do a read through of my novel, Guarding the Heart. I know there are some parts that need to be cut and other areas where I need to add more. So, I’m going to focus on that right now. I am hoping by the end of April to have that ready for any beta readers.

This is a new prospect for me as I have never really edited a work before. I thought I did, but what I really did was just fix grammar and spelling issues. Not really anything on plot or characters. Of course, that was before I had really studied anything on the craft of writing. So, like I said, I’m hoping to have this ready by the end of April, but it may take me longer(or not as long, depending on how it goes).

So, anyone interested in reading through this when it’s ready? It is a romantic suspense and runs about 83,000 words. Here’s a quick synopsis:

Casey Brannigan, a personal bodyguard and former Marine, who is trying to get his life back after losing his last client. He almost lost his life and is on the verge of losing his business as well. With his future and that of his partner and best friend, at risk, he feels he has no choice but to take the next job that comes their way no matter what it is.

But when he gets the phone call from Senator Blaine, he wants to turn down the job even though he knows they cannot afford to and feels forced to take it. His daughter, Emelyn, who Casey thinks is just a spoiled rich girl, has been receiving threats against her life. Her father wants someone to protect her while the police look for the person behind the threats. Casey thinks this will be an easy job and goes by himself to her house to watch her. But, there are problems from the start. And when he finds his feelings for her deepening, he realizes there’s more to her than what you see on the surface.

Now, he has to decide if it is worth the risk of getting close to her only to lose her. When Emelyn is taken under his watch, he throws everything he has into finding her, even calling on people he has not spoken to in years. But, as time starts to run out, he fears he will never see her again, let alone confess his true feelings for her. As he closes in on the man who took her, he is forced to face the past he’s tried to leave behind. Will he find her in time or will he have to bury another woman he loves?