Writing Status - 29 Oct

Some good news, some bad news. First up, the hard numbers:

22 Oct - 1,142 - pretty happy with that
23 Oct - 531 - not as good, better than nothing
24 Oct - 1,144 - on target
25 Oct - 579 - another drop
26 Oct - 1,440 - best day yet, on fire!
27 Oct - zero
28 Oct - zero
29 Oct - 250 or so

The 27 and 28 was a weekend. The Sunday, I was out all morning then we had friends over all afternoon so was quite busy until late. Frustrating, but it would have been rude to be sitting writing and ignoring everybody.

Saturday I had plenty of time to do lots of writing... but I didn't. Rather slack of me there, no excuses. Shoulda, coulda, woulda... but didn't. Shame mate, shame.

The Monday I didn't do any narrative writing, but I did get a bunch of notes down in preparation for NaNo. I have a rough story idea, some notes on chapter outlines and a decent roadplan to follow which should make writing easier.

Fingers crossed!

Dream redux

Had another dream that I remembered. I had this dream last night but didn't get to write this post until now. I did jot a few quick notes when I woke up to remind me later. :)

I was driving a prime mover (big truck with long trailer behind it) in an inner city / urban area type place. Needed to get in and out of really tight places (like, nearly folding the truck back on itself to get in type tight) and with all the stresses on the truck it broke the steering stuff, so ended up blocking traffic with the two front wheels pointing at each other.

Not good.

Jump out, trying to direct traffic around and fix the truck when a bunch of young blokes wander up and are getting up close with the truck. Not an issue, doesn't bother me. But then they jostle my wife who was helping. I grab the guys (well, obe of them) and start pushing and shoving and yelling "back! back! further, back off!"

I didn't care about the truck, I wanted to keep them away from my better half! No way I'm going to let some punk jostle her!

That's about where I woke up.

Writing status - 21 Oct

Doing good so far!

Well, recently. I started my spreadsheet on the 8th, and had five days of zero words. But since I wrote down my goal and published it, I've had three continuous days of hitting targets.

For October, my goals are 1,000 words per day (but building up towards 2,000 per day in November). My stats are:
19th 1,115
20th 2,080
21st 1,489

Not bad numbers, but those were over a weekend. This week will be pretty much make or break I'm guessing. It's fairly easy to write when there is time available and not exhausted.

We'll see how much I can write at the end of the day after work...

Writing goals

"A goal that isn't written down is just a wish."

With my writing, I need to write down a goal. And I keep telling others to use the SMART method, so I suppose I should practice what I preach. ;) It doesn't help that by about 7pm, I feel like it's midnight. Just throw that one on the 'lame excuses' pile.

So, here is my goal, written down:

Specific - to write 1,000 words each day, for the rest of October
Measurable - yes, using a word processing program, it is easy to count how many words have been written (or added).
Achievable - yes, assuming I'm not exhausted, mentally drained or off on different tasks that take up time. I can write a thousand words in about 45 minutes (faster if I'm on a roll), but it gets frustrating when I get constantly pulled away from the laptop or interrupted every 5 minutes.
Relevant - yes, this is building towards 2,000 a day during November.
Timely - yes, there's 13 days left in October, then the big one of 30 days in November. December I can coast.

I've already got a spreadsheet going to keep track of my progress (or lack thereof). I started tracking on the 8th of October but so far already have five "zero" days... so, not off to a good start. My best day so far was 1,118 words. Though admittedly, what I've written so far has all been unrelated exercises or just free rambling. November needs to be a cohesive story.

Writing (again)

Trying to get into the habit of writing.

At the moment, my main goal is just to write *something* preferably every day (where possible). Some days are going to be harder than others. I set up a little spreadsgeet to keep track of stuff.

I could make it a bit more accurate by also tracking stuff like posts on this blog, Facebook and so on. But getting a word count for these is more steps than I care to take. I don't think in the grand scheme of things that I'll be writing enough on social media for it to count for much anyway.

Pretty sure that my previous efforts kept falling flat because I was trying to be too ambitious. The proverbial "biting off more than I could chew" deal.

Fingers crossed!

Dream 2: Electric Boogaloo

How strange, second night in a row I've had a dream strong enough to remember in the morning.

Last nights' dream, I was down south for work and there was this one very odd vehicle that had to come back up north. It looked like a bunch of old 4wd's welded together into one long, unweildly monstrosity with multiple axles.

Somehow I was voluntold to drive it back, being long and with multiple articulation points of course there were roadworks which caused me to have to drive off into some bizarre racetrack where it promptly broke.

Got back onto the main road but had to peddle the rest of the way. On the plus side, got lots of support from people driving past. On the down side, that's a long way to peddle a tiny road train...

Dream three(m)

How curious, another dream I remember.

This one, I was driving a truck and got out of it for some reason. Somehow, the truck got into gear and headed off up a steep hill.

It was going slow enough that I could run after it, but fast enough that I couldn't quite catch it.

I don't know how long the dream actually lasted, or if I was moving around in my sleep but when I woke up I was so tired, and felt like I'd run a marathon. Running uphill is not fun, even dream running!

On an unrelated note, a while back I learned that marathons actually have a defined length. It's a marathon if the course is 42.195km long (so I guess 42.194km isn't a marathon, just a light run?).

More dreams

Its not often that I remember my dreams, most of the time they are gone by the time I wake up.

Had a rather vivid one last night, still remember large parts of it quite clearly.

We (I have no idea who, but there was a group of us) were aboard a privately owned aircraft carrier that had been converted to like a private yatch type thing. I remember the motion of the ship and watching the waves.

Then we were on another, smaller boat in a harbour with loads of other ships around and there was heaps of people dumping weapons and body armour into the water. I remember asking why they were doing that and was told it was as markers for wargames, to test if the equipment coukd find the stuff. "It's okay, because we counted everything prior to putting it in place."

That's great mate, you'll end up with a very accurate list of the number of items that are missing....