Writing Log #10

Reasonably pleased with my progress on Wayward Son, brothers and sisters. Once again, not up to the 10K words per day I used to be able to pull, but I’m improving. I got just about 4000 words written on Sunday, spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday writing these blog entries, and then managed to get just about 3000 words done yesterday (Thursday). An improvement over just 1000 words a day 😀 My objective is to finish chapter 66 by the end of the 31st, and I think I’ll be able to manage that. I’ve shifted some of chapter 66 over to 67, because otherwise it would break the 30,000 words of chapter 65 (already the longest ever). Alas, it does still mean more work for me before I can finish Wayward Son entirely…Still, it’s not good to have chapters that are THAT long. XD

A couple thoughts on the process of writing. If I’m really, *really* inspired, I think I can crank out nearly 2000 words an hour, but that’s only if I’ve got a REALLY good idea of how I want the chapter to go. More often, I average about 1200 words an hour, sometimes 1000. It really depends on how much revision and research I have to do. If I’m writing a battle scene where everything’s planned out, then yeah, 2000 words an hour it is. But if I have to stop writing a lot and check out, say, the Fire Emblem 7 game script or character art, or remove a planned section, then I can dip to 1000 or lower. And since I haven’t planned out this part of the story as well…;_;

On the other hand, I’ve planned the upcoming chapters a *little* better, so they should be easier to write. 😀

Also, as a general note, I find I actually write more when I’m not keeping track of how many words per hour I’m getting through. It’s a good idea to keep track of how many per day I go through, but starting at a specific “X O’Clock” and drive drive driving until the next “Y O’Clock” lends more to distraction than productivity. Once I’m done with chapter 66 I think I’m just gonna barge on through and write as quickly as I can…without paying attention to how quick I’m writing. XD

While I’m writing Wayward Son, though, I also gotta do some reading. I think I ought to make a change of plans…while I’d like to do a book review of the three books on hermits I got recently, I do have to start preparing for some classes to take and teach when I return to grad school. I’ll need to know both African-American history and gay/lesbian US history. So, over the month of June, I’ll try to get these done:

Ralph ellison – Shadow and Act

George Chauncey – Gay New York

Shane White – Somewhat More Independent

Harold Cruse: The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual

HL Gates Jr – The Signifying Monkey

JS Holloway – Confronting the Veil

WEB Du Bois – The Souls of Black Folk

Ira Berlin – Many Thousands Gone

Richard Goldstein – Homocons: The Rise of the Gay Right

James Baldwin – The Fire Next Time

Cathy J. Cohen – The Boundaries of Blackness

Cornel West – Prophesy Deliverance

Daniel Kevles – In The Name of Eugenics

Got a lot of reading ahead, and I gotta start ASAP! So next week I’ll try to review one of the books from that list, rather than the hermit books, hehe. Sorry for the change of plans, but I hope itll be worth it 😀

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Tags: Fire Emblem, the writer's craft, Wayward Son, writing