Write Every Day - April Day #8

[auroracloud]

I didn't sleep nearly enough last night, because after my bout of writing, I stayed up too late watching Doctor Who, and then woke up too early. Oh well, happens sometimes. Some people party wildly on Saturday nights, I write fiction and watch quirky time travellers. Well, I know which one is more fun.

Tonight I'm unlikely to catch quite enough sleep either, because I was visiting a friend, and ended up staying later than I meant. Why do the best conversations always start around 9 pm? Just when you should be going home, that is when you start getting really into history and different centuries' and cultures' ideas and practices of sexuality and gender that are totally a lot more varied, liberal and flexible than people think, mostly because most people's ideas of history and "the old times" are shaped by the 19th and early 20th centuries, which were more restrictive in many ways. So yeah, now I've got both sleep debt and a huge desire to write something set in the 18th century. Or more accurately, do the huge load of research I need to do before I can write anything longer than a very short story set in the 18th century. Because I have a lot more grounding in the 19th century and there's just so much more available about my own country's history in the 19th (let alone the 20th, which I don't have that much interest in).

Um, I digress. Anyway. I had fun. And between writing and the visit, I've probably drunk about 3 litres of tea today.


Today's Writing

I worked on my novel again! Was a bit slow getting started, due to foggy brain, but I eventually ended up with 1098 words, and got to spend some time in my second MCs point of view as well. Fun times!

I don't expect to get as many words on weekdays, but we'll see how it goes. In any case, I'm so happy to have started writing this, after, I don't know, two or three months of planning? I can't even remember when I started planning this, and it's a bit hard to define since I'm using some elements of a story idea I had last autumn, too.


Tally

Day 1: auroracloud, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, navaan, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme

Day 2: auroracloud, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, navaan, shopfront, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, trobadora, ysilme

Day 3: auroracloud, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, navaan, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, trobadora, ysilme

Day 4: alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, trobadora, ysilme

Day 5: auroracloud, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, trobadora, ysilme

Day 6: auroracloud, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, iberiandoctor, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, trobadora, ysilme

Day 7: alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, luzula, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme

Let me know if I missed you or if you wrote but didn't check in yet! You can join us or drop out any time.

Comments

[trobadora]

More drawerfic for me. I was going to tackle SmutSwap this weekend, but I wasn't feeling well, so I didn't. Tomorrow I really need to work on that ...

[auroracloud]

Good luck at tackling SmutSwap!

[sylvanwitch]

Like you, I earned sleep debt last night, but in my case, I was glued to a book and couldn't put it down for the last eighty pages or so, even though I knew I should be trying to wrest myself back into my working sleep schedule, which involves going to bed by 11:00pm. Like you, I suspect I will have a similar deficit tonight, though mine will be because I have anxiety about returning to work (which I always have, and which is totally stupid, but there you go).

YAY for such an awesome word count! That's marvelous!

(I'm an eighteenth century specialist, so I can totally relate to your desire to spend more time in that particular period. It is, in my opinion, simply the most fascinating, but then, I am clearly biased.)

I had a pretty amazing writing day, not because I made quota (though I did) but because on a long walk with my husband, I sort of just yakked at him for a half-hour about my plot issues with the novel, and then he asked me a couple of questions that totally helped me focus on the essential problem, which is that I don't actually have an antagonist (d'oh!), and then I talked at him for another while working through my choices, and then I got home and wrote 400 words of notes to add to my 700 words of story for the day, and I feel awesome about it now! Yay!

[auroracloud]

Hope you got okay sleep and weren't too anxious. Oh, our geekiness keeping us back from sensible sleep habits! At least I ended up having pretty good quality sleep though I didn't have quite enough of it, so I wasn't as tired as I might have been.

Yes, 18th century is very fascinating! Though 18th century in the US is quite a different beast from the 18th century in Finland. Probably more than 99 % of the people here are totally ignorant of anything at all that went on in Finland in the 18th century (with luck, some of them might remember it was the time when Finland was a part of Sweden, but I doubt anything else). Because apparently nothing happened here before the late 19th century nation-building and the early 20th century independence. *eyeroll* Luckily I'm friends with some 18th history scholars/students who supply me with lots of interesting tidbits that would otherwise be hard to find.

I'm glad you had a great writing day, and you were able to work through some of your story problems by talking to your husband about it. Yay, congratulations!

[cornerofmadness]

Another day of barely writing. SIgh.

204 words for me

[auroracloud]

204 words is still much better than nothing!

[cornerofmadness]

Indeed it is

[carenejeans]

I worked a bit on the nonfiction project in the afternoon, then in the evening noodled around on the novel. I didn't write much new stuff, but revised and added a bit here and there. Didn't do any deep cuts, at least!

[auroracloud]

Revision is important, too, even if you don't get a lot of new stuff written!

[talkingtothesky]

I wrote 692 words on Day 8.

[auroracloud]

That sounds great! I'll add you into the tally. :-)