pirateaba
patreon
Blog #5: Solstice Writing Pt. 2
🕑 Added 2023-11-15 04:13:56 +0000 UTCRecap of the last three days.
Sunday--my new designated non-writing work day. I did indeed fill hours of it with meetings and other things that surprisingly come up on days like these. I was only ‘free’ for the last four hours of wakefulness and debated working, but I felt like it’d just be work I’d need to rewrite for quality anyways.
Monday--Pretty productive. I hit 16,000 words, and I felt like I had all the elements I needed to in order to write the 2nd chapter of the Solstice.
Tuesday--Today was not as ideal. I had to waste 50 minutes of my morning on other tasks, and I’m feeling the sharpness I get from the best rest, mental energy, and other factors it’s hard to control slipping. I also think it’s the complexity of the chapter. Still, I got through my notes and reshuffled scenes around.
Conclusion: It’s ‘done’. The second chapter of the Solstice lies at just over 30,000 words. With that said, I am believing my decision to delay was correct. I now take Sundays off, but that means ordinarily I have TWO days to write a chapter.
One to write, one to edit. Ideally I write shorter chapters but in this case, I just wrote for two days with no revisions. I will write the 3rd Chapter on Thursday, Friday, edit on Saturday, and perhaps post the 1st Chapter of the Solstice on Saturday-Sunday.
This allows me to edit all three chapters I’ll hopefully have in tandem…and I believe there will be some shuffling around of scenes and adding a lot more details and nuance. I don’t know if they’re lower quality than I want; reactions are mixed.
Having a live audience while I write is a good thing, sometimes, for motivation and understanding if a scene is hitting the emotional levels I want or building anticipation, but the readers cannot see ahead, nor do they read it at the pace of a regular reader. It may be that I will stop stream-writing because the reactions no longer help me.
They were mixed, this chapter, I think, so we will find out if that’s systemic to the chapter or the method and pacing and lack of edits for them. Either way--I am on-track and will take Wednesday off as usual before heading into it Thursday. Releasing Saturday/Sunday remains the plan but we shall see.
I worry, mostly, that my concentration will wane after this, because I have already written 65,000 words in about six days. Having days off to recharge helps but near the end of the Solstice I may flag.
There’s also what I cannot control, which is writing scenes that are excellent and amazing because the moment requires it. I worry…but I will continue to do my best. Optimism? …This chapter muddying narratively aside, I am writing without collapsing. Time will tell if this is too grandiose or confusing or has too many twists or turns, but we’re in it. I’ll update you on Saturday. Thanks for waiting.
--pirateaba
PS. Do not comment any spoilers about the streams here or anywhere else. I am removing them if I see them. I will begin banning people if they do it anywhere, be it Reddit, Discord, or the site.
Comments
OldMage
Hi pirateaba, I have been watching the effort and all the hard work, looking for ward to seeing the final results of your effort and hard work. Thanks for all you do.
Mike
thx!
Alaric Chesley
Reagen
Mike
just had a stray kitten wander up can someone remind me what numbtounges cat’s name is?
LurkNautili
Have you considered some kind of hybrid approach between having the the tight feedback loop of a stream and presumably no edits due to feedback? Like releasing drafts that get commented on and possibly edited, so like a stream but with a longer buffer (time scale of days or longer, instead of seconds to hours)? But then, what good is feedback anyhow? Other than factual errors and the like, it's subjective and opinions will differ wildly, and it's not clear what amounts to a compromise of authorial vision.
Aaron
Nice, can't wait!
Charles T Martin
I don't watch streams in general, nor for this. I think a bit of distance between the magic (work) that goes into the writing, and myself as a member of the audience helps.
