Having my cake and eating it

As expected there was no writing done today. Had my sister’s 21st birthday party to attend. It was quite a good night. I have ate more cake in the last week than I have ate in the last couple of years combined. Which is not to say that I ate a ridiculous amount of cake, only that I generally dont eat a lot of cake so having a few slices this week is a lot for me. Which is certainly a lot less interesting a fact than if I eat loads of cake normally and then I just ate 10 times as much over the last week.

Don’t know why I even mentioned it to be honest.

The Super Sexy Thursday Update

Another 744 words today but who’s counting anymore?  That’ll be the last I write this week because of family stuff I have tomorrow and saturday.  Still, coming close to 6000 words with 2 whole days left to go is pretty good I think.  I just finished Chapter 6 tonight and I know exactly where I’m going now with chapter 7 which should be quite a long one, as it will have around three parts.  I may decide to split them into seperate chapters though if I think it would work better.  I was able to add what I think are quite clever bits to the story today.  They are only really seeds at the moment though as their significance will be made clear in future chapters.  It was cool to realise I could slot them right into the story as it encouraged me that the foundations of the book seem to be fairly solid.  I like the idea of adding layers to the story with each chapter.  That’s what I’m aiming for anyway.

In other news, I’m about to upgrade my PC fairly soon.  Nothing flashy, I just want a graphics card that will allow me to run a dual monitor set up and increase the ram from 512mb to 2GB.  I’m running Ubuntu linux as Windows drives me nuts (and Ubuntu’s Compiz desktop effects blows Microsofts efforts out of the water) but Amarok, the best music player software ever, kind of runs slow on my machine right now.  I want to have that running on one screen and Firefox or OpenOffice Writer running on the other screen.  Yes I know I’m a nerd and always will be.  Tomorrow I have to use Microsoft Vista for the first time on my Dad’s new computer and transfer all his files across from his windows box.  Hopefully that will be straightforward but I’ll reserve judgement until I use it.

Target Eliminated. Thanks for playing.

1616 words.  5083 words by Wednesday.  Not too shabby.  Now the pattern so far has been that I set a target and then I beat that target and I set the next week’s target higher.  Next week I don’t think I’m going to do that.  I think I’m going to keep it at 5000.  Due to work commitments I don’t anticipate having a lot of time to be able to write next week as I’m going to have a fairly hefty commute for most of the week.  I think I will be able to consider next week a huge success if I get 5000 words, but in reality I’m not expecting myself to beat it.

This week has gone really well.  If I were somehow able to maintain a pace of at least 5000 words a week I would have a first draft completed in 17 weeks which would be pretty cool.  Right now, I have around 15500 words, which I am already quite impressed with myself for managing so fast.  Of course I don’t want to get complacent with this and hopefully after the next week I can get back on track (if I need to, who knows I might still make the target next week, it isnt impossible).

I saw the film Definitely Maybe last night.  It was okay.  I generally like romantic comedies as long as they are well written.  This one was yet at the same time I thought it was missing something.  It didn’t have the heart that I think these types of film have to have to work.  The film’s premise of trying to keep you guessing who was going to end up being the woman he married and had a kid with was completely predictable and was telegraphed from the start.  I think if you have even a basic understanding of how these movies go you could have worked out exactly how it would play out.

Still, I’ve seen much worse examples in the genre.  Music and Lyrics anyone?  What a pile of shit that was.  Just a wretched, horrible film.

Today I wrote more words

Another solid day: 1223 words.  3467 in total so far.  It was tougher going today starting a new chapter but I think I’ve opened it up a bit now so it should hopefully mean another good day tomorrow.  I also think I have a way into the following chapters which is good.  It’s always a lot more comforting I think to at least have an idea where you are going.  Today’s writing, until I got into it, was a bit more like waiting to see where things go.  It feels more like writing without a safety net, though your life is not literally in danger.  Actually putting your life in danger to write is not really a productive writing method, at least for myself.  And you have to think that some of the shit that makes it onto TV these days, people are obviously writing with guns to their heads and it’s just not working.

I’m keen to see that Be Kind Rewind film.  I like the idea behind it and I don’t seem to hate Jack Black as much as I’m finding a lot of people do.  Hopefully I get to see it soon and it’s good.  Nothing worse than when a really good idea is lost because of shit writing.

And yes, I’m aware that that will probably summarise the novel I’m writing.

Happy Birthday to me!

Hurrah!  I am a year closer to death!  Got some driving lessons and a swanky widescreen monitor which I am now using to write this update.

And what an update.  I have wrote 2065 words today, which for those keeping score is 65 words more than my first week’s target, more than half of my second week’s target and a pretty hefty chunk of this week’s target.  Today was just like night and day compared to yesterday.  It just wasn’t happening yesterday but today the words were just spilling out.  As I mentioned before this chapter was a pivotal one.  It pretty much lays the foundation for the rest of the novel in a lot of ways.  It’s a relief to get through it and to have something that as a first draft I am quite happy with.

To me, it just highlights just how important it is to keep on plugging away.  Some days nothing seems to click, but other days everything does.  So 2244 word down,  2756 to go.  Still a good amount but it looks more feasible now than it did yesterday.

5000 Words > snowballs in hell

I don’t like my chances of making 5000 words this week.  Not based on today’s writing at any rate.  I made some progress last night writing about 614 words.  Of course that was Saturday so it only gets added to last week’s total (which at 4662 is not that far off 5000) and not this week’s.  This week’s is currently at 179.  Some way to go then.  It’s just not happening today it seems.  The biggest problem this week anyway will be that even if I get going it is going to be hard finding the time.  I have a family birthday party to go to on Friday and I am going out on Saturday as well.  So I only have four days which is basically 1,250 words a day (no calculator required this time) which is going to be tough.  Still, it wouldn’t be worth attempting if it wasn’t tough would it?  Would it?  No seriously, would it?  If you think it wouldn’t I’d like to hear.  I think I can be talked out of doing it.  Give it a go.

And oh yeah, it is my birthday tomorrow too.  Hopefully I don’t get too many presents to distract me.  Just kidding, I want loads of presents.

“I don’t want hope,” said the Bastard.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been doing some research today.  I’ve been having problems finding the type of information I need.  It’s a bit frustrating as the amount that I will actually write based on it will be quite small, but it’s actually pivotal to the entire story so it has to be done.  The problems I am having though, and there is no way to get past this, make me a complete bastard for viewing them as problems.  They are only problems to me and perhaps to other writers in similar situations.  Here is the problem:  The information I need is medical based, but everywhere I look the information presented is being done so in too positive a light.  Of course it should be presented in that way.  I am not the target audience for this information, I know that.  The target audience is the people that are affected by these conditions, be it directly or indirectly, who want to be presented with the facts but also want to know that there is hope for them.  I know this.  But it’s not what I need.  I need to know about what happens in the worst possible cases.  I need to know what happens when someone can’t easily live with a condition.  I don’t want hope!  I want despair and suffering dammit!  I want a medical site that tells me if I get such and such a condition I am totally and utterly screwed.

I am a complete shit.  Don’t look at me.

Target Destroyed Rambo Style

626 words today which I think puts me over the 4000 words target a day early.  Let me check my calculator.  3420 + 626 = 4046!  Hurrah.  Yes, I legitimately had to check my calculator to find the total (I at least knew it was over 4000).  I’m alright at maths, but not in my head.  I can get it, it just takes me a few seconds more than a lot of people.  I laugh at all those maths teachers who claimed that we would not always have access to calculators so it was important to be good at doing maths in your head.  Now everyone carries a mobile phone with a built in calculator with them.  Suck it Maths teachers of the world.

Good news about my target being reached though.  Tomorrow I will need to do some research for the part I am writing which I am realizing may be quite a difficult one.  Hopefully the research will help me get through it though.

Saw Rambo tonight.  You know what to expect going in.  Rambo kills a lot of people.  It’s a pretty unflinching film though, highlighting the atrocities that take place in Burma.  It’s really disturbing in a lot of places, especially at the beginning.  Stallone clearly wanted to make a point other than Rambo kicking everyone’s arse with this one.  I don’t know how effectively you can really get your point across with the Rambo character mind you, but the film has at least got me thinking.  Mostly what utter cunts the human race can be at times but hey ho.

More Fascinating Talk about TARGETS

Well I was saving like a nutter tonight…  707 words today, giving me a total going into the weekend of 3420.  580 word left to go.  I’m not sure I will get any writing done tomorrow, but I will definitely get some done on Saturday and should still easily make the 4000 target.

For next week I am not sure whether to try for another week of 4000 or put it up to 5000 and see how I get on.  I am tempted to try for the 5000 since I didn’t believe I was going to make the 4000 target and now it looks like I should comfortably meet that.  Maybe I just had a decent week or maybe the fact that I thought the target was pretty hard was what spurred me on to write more.  Even if I don’t meet the target the purpose is to write a fair amount each week and so far it seems to be working.  The majority of the novel has been written in the last two weeks alone.

I am pretty sure I am going to try for 5000.  Really, there is no reason why not.

I am going to see Rambo tomorrow night so I’ll post my thoughts on that over the weekend.  As if you give a shit.

Back the f*** up!

So I left my computer running to go watch the Brits on ITV.  I come back and check a few websites and my computer freezes up.  No matter.  I just restarted the machine.  I fired up Open Office Writer and run the recovery function and of course it doesn’t have the full back up.  It should, because it’s supposed to back up every 15 minutes.  Now the Brits were on for about two hours and using the system of time I use traditionally 15 minutes is less than two hours so I should have been okay.  But of course I wasn’t and I lost most of tonight’s writing.  No matter though I rewrote the bit from memory and actually ended up with 511 words this time so it worked out okay.  But let this be a lesson, mainly to me but it’s useful for everyone.  Back your stuff up regularly or cry when your computer goes tits up (because it definitely will go tits up at some point).

Arctic Monkeys are seriously overrated by the way.  And I think I might have seen KT Tunstall on the bus this morning.  She had a small travel suitcase so if it was her she was probably on the way to the airport to get down to the Brits.  Hard to say though.  I may have just been staring at a woman who looked vaguely like her.   That’s far more realistic.  What would she being doing on a bus?  Famous people dont use the bus, everyone knows that.