A Small Update

Nothing major to report except that I'm closing in on 50K for Beyond the Milky Way! I had all the plans in the world to have it finished before the start of Camp NaNo but it doesn't look like that will be the case. No worries, though: I'll just work on two stories at once. I've somewhat proven that it is possible to write 50k words in a month, even with the procrastination I'm known for!

Thanks to a fellow writer, I was introduced to this app called Writeometer. It is a mobile app but helps you more than you think! It's main idea is for word sprints, which you can set the timer to how many minutes you desire. My friend was used to thirty minute sprints until she asked me to join in. With my time constraints, I could only do fifteen minute sprints; she eventually told me that those worked out better for her as well!

So, once you download the app, you fill in what project you're working on. I haven't truly tested the limits but I have three projects so far; I have no idea if you can add more. After that, you set the other perimeters like your word count goal overall as well as your daily one. It'll calculate how long it will take for you to reach your overall goal, depending on your daily word goal. But, you can adjust all you want.

So, I lied. Looking through the logs for my project, I started on February 11th. I already had a little over 4k words. So far, I have 120 entries of fifteen minute sprints but nineteen empty days; basically, days where I didn't write. Well... I guess it's not a TOTAL lie; my math is wonky but I believe that adds up to a little over a month. Hey, I leave all that math stuff to my mathematician husband, thank you!

Sprints help to fight that procrastination. Because it's just like NaNoWriMo; they don't ask for it to be perfect. The only requirement is to write. What I do is I have two documents up whenever I do sprints for my Beyond the Milky Way project; this is because I'm revising from the 2nd revision (yes, it is a bit of cheating but I am changing quite a bit; I'm not copying word for word). The first is the last revision and the latter is the revision being worked on. After I finish a chapter and log in all the sprints I've done, I open up another document: this one is the one you guys see posted on the sites I mentioned in my last entry. I found it very helpful to have a separate document for revisions because they alter your original word count. The second revision is actually 47462 words in; the totally revised document has 34397. If I count where I've stopped revising for the third time (if that makes sense...) then the second one has 35056. 659 words is practically two word sprints for me!

Yes; you've gotten a glimpse into my method of madness! I am working on my third revision of the story, and after receiving some valuable feedback from another writer, I'm going through a fourth one before it will be ready for print! I am hoping to have this done by my birthday; that would be nice!

And now I leave you; I have a house to tend to. Well... a husband and some laundry. But, according to Writeometer, all I need is 231 words a day to reach 50K by the 24th. Sad that the story won't be finished at 50k but hey, progress is progress! :D