Just finished off week three and I’m really impressed by how it’s going. Everything is flowing and I could just keep writing through the end if I let myself. I just don’t have that much time.
So here’s where I’m at right now and what my goals are for the last week of work. Let me know if you have any questions, I’ll try to help.
We’re back for another weekly wrap-up and things went very well this week. Overall, I got through about 33k words and nearly 120 pages and an awful lot of chapters. I’m not even sure how many because I didn’t pay attention to where I started. So far, I’m completely satisfied.
So let’s break it down.
This is one question that I get all the time, especially when I start talking about how productive I can get. What’s really going on here, as any productive author will tell you, is that I’m getting into a flow state where I can write for a long period of time and just pour my words onto the page without having to screech to a halt and think about it.
In my opinion, it’s really what writers ought to be trying to train themselves to do. So here are some details, at least in my case.
So here goes the first official week of this book and I’m tracking my exact progress every day. This was actually a tough week because of the holiday and that usually slows me down but not this time. So let’s see where I got.
I had a couple of people ask, even after I did my “day in the life” post, exactly how books shake out, given my quick turnaround schedule so I’m going to toss this out there, both because I think it might be interesting and because I hope it might help people. So, for this book, the last book of the year for me, I’m going to do a weekly check-in to show what I’ve done. This is more of an introduction because I’m scheduled to start writing on Monday, November 22, 2021.
So let’s see where we stand.
I see a ton of this out there, but when you ask established writers how to write a book, their answers are not intended to make you happy. You being happy is irrelevant. The goal is to make your potential readers happy. That’s how you get to be successful!
Now I know that I’ve been complaining a lot recently about the poor state of the amateur writer and while that’s certainly valid, after all, if the goal is to help people to become better writers, correcting their misconceptions and pointing out their foibles is essential, but I wanted to do something a bit more positive today.
So this is how I write a book and where I’m at right now. Hope it helps.
Honestly, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no point trying to help amateur writers at all. Time and time again, I try to inject some real world honesty into the, unfortunately, fantasy land that far too many of them want to live in and time and time again, I’m met with hostility and anger, not thanks.
Yeah, well fuck you too.
This is another one of those things that, if you hang around on Reddit or amateur writer forums, you will run into near constantly. The second they get the feeling that someone is better than they are, they will demand that it can’t be so because… fee-fees!
And that’s just dumb.
I came across this today and unfortunately, it’s not at all uncommon for amateur writers, especially young, immature amateur writers, but I thought it would make a good cautionary tale that people can learn from.
There was someone who popped up on Reddit with a rather silly idea for a major mechanic in a book and even when everyone pointed out just how unrealistic, unworkable and downright ridiculous it was, he kept demanding that he wanted to do it, no matter how badly it would all turn out.
These people need to grow up.
