Today I'm hanging my head low. After getting off to a roaring start for the first two weeks of writing the rough draft manuscript for Cataract Canyon, the third book in my RM Outdoor Adventure mystery series, my word count this week was a measly 1,000 words or so, for a total to-date of 12,000 words. My goal was to be at 14,000 words by now, so I'm behind. Groan!
What's the reason for the slippage? A multitude of real-life and writing-life conflicts reared their heads. I lost about two days to our once-a-month transfer from our Breckenridge home to our Colorado Springs one, a 50th anniversary celebration in Denver for family friends, a half-day hike with another friend, and packing up boxes to transfer to Breckenridge the next time we go up. I lost another two days to the RMMWA meeting where my editor spoke on a panel of two, to a long lunch (2.5 hrs!) with my agent and editor, and to the RMFW Colorado Gold conference book signing. I had volunteered to help set-up for the signing, then there was the signing itself, and the all-important gabbing and catching up with conference attendees before and after.
Finally, I lost about a day to hitting a research gap that affected the plot and trying to work through it. It was a question that will be answered when I take my Cataract Canyon whitewater rafting trip the week after next, but to continue to make writing progress, I needed to know the answer this week. I found enough information to start up again and added about 1,000 words, but the week was too far gone to do more.
Tracking my progress publicly also means tracking my lack-of-progress when I fail to meet my goals, so here it is. I hope my report at the end of next week will be better. It couldn't be much worse!
Showing posts with label rough draft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rough draft. Show all posts
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Saturday, September 03, 2011
Second Week's Word Count
As I posted last Saturday, to keep myself accountable, I'm going to publish my weekly word count at the end of each week on my Work-in-Progress, Cataract Canyon, the third book in my RM Outdoor Adventure Mystery series starring whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner. Last week, my total was almost 7000 words, and this week it was a little over 4000 words, for a total to date of about 11,000 words.
The estimate is hazy because I discovered that I had an old version of the file on my memory stick after driving from our Colorado Springs home to our Breckenridge home. I was missing a half day's work. I'm hoping that when I get back to Colorado Springs, the version with that work will still be there and I can do a merge of the current file and that one and move on. Otherwise, I'll have to rewrite it. In the meantime, I'm moving on in the file I have.
I wrote fewer words this week for a couple of good reasons, so I'm not unhappy with the count. First, my grown daughter and a friend visited for a few days while on a 3-week cross-country tour, and spending time with her was more important than writing. Second, in the book, I've gotten to the point where the whitewater rafters have launched their rafts and begun the trip. However, I won't be taking the trip myself for two more weeks. So, I got bogged down with having to do some online research. I learned enough to keep on making progress, with some holes that will get filled after I take my trip.
The estimate is hazy because I discovered that I had an old version of the file on my memory stick after driving from our Colorado Springs home to our Breckenridge home. I was missing a half day's work. I'm hoping that when I get back to Colorado Springs, the version with that work will still be there and I can do a merge of the current file and that one and move on. Otherwise, I'll have to rewrite it. In the meantime, I'm moving on in the file I have.
I wrote fewer words this week for a couple of good reasons, so I'm not unhappy with the count. First, my grown daughter and a friend visited for a few days while on a 3-week cross-country tour, and spending time with her was more important than writing. Second, in the book, I've gotten to the point where the whitewater rafters have launched their rafts and begun the trip. However, I won't be taking the trip myself for two more weeks. So, I got bogged down with having to do some online research. I learned enough to keep on making progress, with some holes that will get filled after I take my trip.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
First Week's Word Count
To keep myself accountable, I'm going to publish my weekly word count at the end of each week on my Work-in-Progress, the third book in my RM Outdoor Adventure Mystery series starring whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner. I usually get off to a good start on my rough draft manuscripts, because both I and the characters are raring to go once I stop work on my scene outline and character profiles and start writing. Where I tend to bog down is in the middle, and hopefully this public accounting will get me over that hump.
My goal for this week was 5000 words, and by working last night, I managed to write almost 7000 words, finishing chapters one and two. I'm very pleased with this progress, though I know the early chapters will need a lot of refining after I take my research trip to Cataract Canyon in Utah in September, which is the setting (and title) for the book.
Today, I'm teaching a workshop to a group of 35 middle-school-aged Girl Scouts at their CSI-themed campout near Woodland Park. Titled "Constructing a Mystery," I hope it gets their creative juices flowing, so they can brain-storm some potential mystery scenarios of their own.
My goal for this week was 5000 words, and by working last night, I managed to write almost 7000 words, finishing chapters one and two. I'm very pleased with this progress, though I know the early chapters will need a lot of refining after I take my research trip to Cataract Canyon in Utah in September, which is the setting (and title) for the book.
Today, I'm teaching a workshop to a group of 35 middle-school-aged Girl Scouts at their CSI-themed campout near Woodland Park. Titled "Constructing a Mystery," I hope it gets their creative juices flowing, so they can brain-storm some potential mystery scenarios of their own.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Scheduling a Rough Draft
Back in September of 2010, when I was starting to write the rough draft of the third book in my Claire Hanover gift basket designer mystery series, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek guest post on Kaye Barley's Meanderings and Muses blog about Being Your Own Boss. Well, it's time to crack the whip again on my recalcitrant employee (moi) and set up a weekly writing schedule for cranking out the rough draft of the third book in my RM Outdoor Adventures mystery series featuring whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner.
As I said on Kaye's blog back then, my average word count per page is about 275 words and my average book length is about 77,000 words or 280 pages. A reasonable output for me is 20 pages a week or 5500 words (I know! Employee Beth is a slow writer.). That means I should be able to write a rough draft in 14 weeks, with a few partial or full weeks added on for vacations, conferences, research, and such. So, I mapped out a schedule for myself from the beginning of next week through the week before Christmas with the number of pages each week I need to write. I've got it posted it next to my computer to keep me on task.
What that means is that I'll be less responsive on social media and email, because I need to avoid getting on-line each day until I've met that day's page count goal. So, if you see me responding to an email or posting on Facebook before noon, Mountain Time, please feel free to chew me out! I'm likely avoiding some sticky scene in the manuscript. :)
As I said on Kaye's blog back then, my average word count per page is about 275 words and my average book length is about 77,000 words or 280 pages. A reasonable output for me is 20 pages a week or 5500 words (I know! Employee Beth is a slow writer.). That means I should be able to write a rough draft in 14 weeks, with a few partial or full weeks added on for vacations, conferences, research, and such. So, I mapped out a schedule for myself from the beginning of next week through the week before Christmas with the number of pages each week I need to write. I've got it posted it next to my computer to keep me on task.
What that means is that I'll be less responsive on social media and email, because I need to avoid getting on-line each day until I've met that day's page count goal. So, if you see me responding to an email or posting on Facebook before noon, Mountain Time, please feel free to chew me out! I'm likely avoiding some sticky scene in the manuscript. :)
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Laying the Groundwork for a Rough Draft
I've been working on laying the groundwork for a new mystery manuscript, the third book in the RM Outdoor Adventures mystery series starring whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner. The first book, Deadly Currents, was released by Midnight Ink in March this year. The second, Wicked Eddies, will be released in May of 2012, and this third one, that I'm calling Cataract Canyon for now, should be scheduled for May, 2013. I hope to finish the rough draft by Christmas.
Cataract Canyon will take place in Cataract Canyon on the Colorado River south of Moab, Utah. I envision it as a "locked room" style of mystery, but in this case, the room will be the canyon itself. Mandy and her boyfriend Rob Juarez will lead a 5-day whitewater rafting/climbing trip down the canyon in the fall, when very few outfitters lead trips down the canyon. Thus, they'll be isolated. Of course, one of their clients will be murdered, and the killer will sabotage their satellite phone at the same time, cutting the adventurers off from the outside world. Mandy and Rob will be locked into a race to find out who the killer is and to get all of their clients off the river as soon as possible, alive and safe. But the killer will have other ideas ...
To research the location, my husband and I will take our own 5-day whitewater rafting trip down Cataract Canyon in mid-September. I've been outfitting myself with the proper clothing and gear for such a trip and reading about the canyon geology, topography, flora & fauna, Native American ruins, and more. All of this is fodder for the book, stuffing the research file.
What I also do to lay the groundwork for the rough draft of a manuscript is to define the major characters, give them names, and fill out personality profiles for them. I already have personality profiles for Mandy and Rob, and two of their rafting guides who will come with them, Gonzo Gordon and Kendra Lee. However, everyone else, including the climbing guide they hire and the twelve clients that will ride the Colorado River with them, are new characters. So, I've been spending a lot of time getting to know them.
The third major task I take on in this pre-draft phase of a manuscript is to create a scene-by-scene outline. I usually have about 40 scenes in a book, about two to a chapter, for about 20 chapters in an approximately 75,000 word mystery. And by the time I start writing the rough draft, I've usually defined 34-37 of those 40 scenes. The outline is still flexible, allowing for scenes to be added, deleted, or changed, but most of the story is documented in the outline, which expands in length and detail as I write the rough draft. I currently have defined 27 scenes, so I'm about 3/4ths of the way there.
I usually know when it's time to start writing the rough draft. The groundwork has allowed my characters and the plot to become well-enough defined that the characters start talking to me and each other in my head, keeping me up at night. They clamor for their story to be told, and after reining them in for awhile while I nail down the story structure, I finally have to let go and let the story begin. The characters are already talking to me, so I'm thinking and hoping that I'll start writing the rough draft some time next week.
Cataract Canyon will take place in Cataract Canyon on the Colorado River south of Moab, Utah. I envision it as a "locked room" style of mystery, but in this case, the room will be the canyon itself. Mandy and her boyfriend Rob Juarez will lead a 5-day whitewater rafting/climbing trip down the canyon in the fall, when very few outfitters lead trips down the canyon. Thus, they'll be isolated. Of course, one of their clients will be murdered, and the killer will sabotage their satellite phone at the same time, cutting the adventurers off from the outside world. Mandy and Rob will be locked into a race to find out who the killer is and to get all of their clients off the river as soon as possible, alive and safe. But the killer will have other ideas ...
To research the location, my husband and I will take our own 5-day whitewater rafting trip down Cataract Canyon in mid-September. I've been outfitting myself with the proper clothing and gear for such a trip and reading about the canyon geology, topography, flora & fauna, Native American ruins, and more. All of this is fodder for the book, stuffing the research file.
What I also do to lay the groundwork for the rough draft of a manuscript is to define the major characters, give them names, and fill out personality profiles for them. I already have personality profiles for Mandy and Rob, and two of their rafting guides who will come with them, Gonzo Gordon and Kendra Lee. However, everyone else, including the climbing guide they hire and the twelve clients that will ride the Colorado River with them, are new characters. So, I've been spending a lot of time getting to know them.
The third major task I take on in this pre-draft phase of a manuscript is to create a scene-by-scene outline. I usually have about 40 scenes in a book, about two to a chapter, for about 20 chapters in an approximately 75,000 word mystery. And by the time I start writing the rough draft, I've usually defined 34-37 of those 40 scenes. The outline is still flexible, allowing for scenes to be added, deleted, or changed, but most of the story is documented in the outline, which expands in length and detail as I write the rough draft. I currently have defined 27 scenes, so I'm about 3/4ths of the way there.
I usually know when it's time to start writing the rough draft. The groundwork has allowed my characters and the plot to become well-enough defined that the characters start talking to me and each other in my head, keeping me up at night. They clamor for their story to be told, and after reining them in for awhile while I nail down the story structure, I finally have to let go and let the story begin. The characters are already talking to me, so I'm thinking and hoping that I'll start writing the rough draft some time next week.
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