The Writing Process: The Word Count.

I noticed on Twitter X recently that authors will occasionally mention their word count for the day. Some are quite impressive, writing several thousand words in a day. I'm not that productive, and I felt for some time that I was more of a binge writer than someone who could just write every day. However, I have tried to change this, and that was because of Covid.

When I tested positive for Covid, I decided that while under the weather, I would try to do two things. The first was to catch up on my reading. I have many books that I want to read, but just don't get around to it. Second, I was going to write more consistently. I ended up doing neither. I did some reading, but not much. Furthermore, I did no writing at all.  

For two to three weeks, I just waited for Covid to do its thing and then clear up. Fortunately, It did, but then I thought about all that wasted time. I did very little because I did not feel like doing anything, but this wasn't just procrastination. I did think about what I should be doing, and then I set a goal that I would write every day. So far, that is what I have been doing. In the past, I have never really thought about doing a daily word count, but now that is what I'm doing.

So, in the last four days, my numbers are 1050, 1183, 2286 and so far today, 1058.

This is writing on two WIP. One, is my first attempt at fiction. I will write more about this in due course. The second is non-fiction. 

Somebody posted on Twitter X the writer Ian Fleming's (he of James Bond fame), daily routine. Here it is.

Of course, it does help that he was a successful author and making decent money. For most of us, it is not realistic, but the general principle to write something each day if you can is a good one. 

What works about writing every day, if you can do it, is that the numbers soon add up. Average 1000 words a day, and that is 365,000 in a year, and potentially three or four books. Of course, you need to have the ideas, and then there is all the editing, the promoting, etc, etc. So, it is never that easy as life, and procrastination gets in the way. However, while there is not much I can do about life getting in the way at the moment, I can do more to avoid procrastination.

Charity shop book haul…yet another five for a pound haul (part one).

So, I'm now playing catch up. Having been under the weather for a while, there are a number of posts to catch up on, including several book hauls.

Let's see what I got this time from the charity shop that keeps giving with their five for a pound offer.

All the ratings are from the Goodreads website (as of writing).

1) The Fry Chronicles, an Autobiography by Stephen Fry. 3.84 average review rating, 22132 ratings, 1232 reviews.

“Stephen Fry arrived at Cambridge on probation: a convicted fraudster and thief, an addict, liar, fantasist and failed suicide, convinced that at any moment he would be found out and flung away.

Instead, university life offered him love, romance, and the chance to stand on a stage and entertain.”

Link: The Fry Chronicles 

2) Animal, The Autobiography of a Female Body by Sara Pascoe. 4.15 average review rating, 8839 ratings, 639 reviews.

“Women have so much going on, what with boobs and jealousy and menstruating and broodiness and sex and infidelity and pubes and wombs and jobs and memories and emotions and the past and the future and themselves and each other.

Here's a book that deals with all of it.”

Link: Animal, The Autobiography of a Female Body

3) Only Fools and Stories by David Jason. 4.24 average review rating, 805 ratings, 67 reviews.

“…in a follow-up autobiography, he tells us about the many other lives he has lived – his characters. From Del Boy to Granville, Pop Larkin to Frost, he takes us behind the scenes and under the skins of some of the best loved acts of his career.”

Link: Only Fools and Stories

The Blog: Giving it a New Look.

So, yesterday I decided to change the look of the blog layout and theme, and I think it now looks better. It has a cleaner look to it, no background picture. 

I also simplified the Son of My Father page, along the lines of chapter headings telling the story of what the book is about, so why not do it that way?

Here's a sample.

Chapter Nine — Son of My Father.

Chapter Ten — Big School.

Chapter Eleven — Related to a Film Star?

Chapter Twelve — The Family From Hell.

Chapter Thirteen — The Girl With Beautiful Eyes.

I also managed to write 2300 or so words yesterday of my new WIP (Really getting with it now, it does mean Work in Progress, doesn't it? Doesn't it?). 

I'm sure that one day I will be a proper writer.

Catching Up. Just a Short Post.

Well, I had covid, and I got over covid. At the time, I did plan to do some reading, maybe some writing, but in the end I really did not do too much of either. That means there is a lot to catch up on and the blog got left behind. 

So, here are a few posts to come.

Another charity shop book haul.

I found more books (twice) that someone left in my local wildlife park.

I have two book ideas in development. (If my mother was still alive, she would be saying, "Hark at you. Who do you think you are, Harlan Coben?")

Various Twitter X spats.

Blog shorts, like this one. 

Soon winter will be over, and the five o'clock darkness will disappear for another year.

Writing When Under the Weather: A Covid Post.

Things had started off so well. Last Tuesday, I wrote about 1500 words in my new WIP (Work In Progress). Listen to me using fancy terms to describe doing some writing. Still, I thought that 1500 words was a decent enough amount, and I was looking forward to getting more written the next day.  

The next morning I didn't feel right, a bit achy, a tickle in the throat, although that had been there for about a week. A bit of a cough. At first, I thought, maybe it's a cold? Then, as the mind likes to play tricks, I was reminded of the aches and thought, could it be flu? I doubted it, but it didn't feel exactly like a cold. Feeling lethargic, as the day went on, writing was put on one side. Then I thought, could it be Covid?

I'd avoided it so far. I also had some test packs and decided that I might as well use one, at least it would eliminate covid, as I expected it to be negative (don't know why). So, I did the test. The instructions indicated what a positive test would be, and it would take up to fifteen minutes to confirm either way. It actually took about half that time. Two red bars indicating positive. Oh dear. I began to wonder where I had picked it up. In the previous week, I hadn't been around that many people, so I didn't need to contact anyone to warn them. 

Now, it's the sixth day, and the only good thing about the last week is that I did get some reading done, although most of the time I felt too lethargic or listless to even read. I didn't even think about doing any writing, although having Covid has given me an idea to develop within the story that I was writing. In one of those strange coincidences, the last thing I had written was how my main character would need to be careful to avoid catching something serious, given the options for treatment were no longer available.

So, this is the first I've written for a while. It would have been nice to report that in the downtime of being sick, I had written a lot, but that's not the case. I'm now getting back into it, and hopefully, as things improve from here, I will get a move on and write more.

The twelve posts of Christmas...day twelve.

The Twelve Days are 25 December – 5 January, with the last day being Twelfth Night (Epiphany Eve), and this is the final post of this series.

Many people will use the start of a new year to make a change in their life, a resolution.

I did not make any, other than to keep on writing, or try to. My current project is a work of fiction. It is a new experience for me to write fiction, but as a friend of mine use to say, you will never know if you don't try.

That concludes the twelve posts of Christmas for this year.

Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas!
 

 

The twelve posts of Christmas...day eleven. Em dash, en dash or hyphen?

On Twitter X yesterday, someone mentioned the use of em dash in their writing, I wondered what it was. I had to look it up.

A dash is longer than a hyphen and is commonly used to indicate a range or a pause. The most common types of dashes are the en dash (–) and the em dash (—).

A hyphen (-) is a punctuation mark that’s used to join words or parts of words. It’s not interchangeable with other types of dashes.

Grammarist.com 

Clearly, this was something that I should have known, as for years I have occasionally used a dash. It seems I may have been using it wrong, or using the wrong one. 

I blame the education system, and the keyboard on my PC! My school because I must have been taught this, but it clearly didn't stay in my mind. I was probably not paying attention. I also blame the keyboard, because there are no dedicated em dash or en dash keys.  There is a hyphen key, and that is what I have been using, more or less, regardless of whether it needed the em or en dash, which I had totally forgotten about. Naughty boy, but why had I totally forgotten about it? It may be because it is rarely used—and I rarely use it. Accept, I just did. Was that too dramatic, and did I use it right!?

Rule #1

Use an em dash to highlight dramatic interrupting ideas, summaries, and abrupt changes of thought.

Grammarist.com 

 

The twelve posts of Christmas...day ten. The Original Twelve Days of Christmas.