Write one paragraph describing the scene. Then in walk two characters. Who are they? Write some dialogue as your characters try to sink their ball. Write for ten minutes.
JEH
Tag: writing
Writing 365,000 Words in a Year Update #22
It’s been almost two weeks since I updated. During that time I’ve been working fairly diligently on two of my main projects, Under Jupiter and MF. And tonight I passed 200,000 words!!!!!
PARTY TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Obviously this nice round number feels pretty big. I started this goal in September of 2016, and a lot of time has passes since then, and obviously I’ve written a lot of words. But sometimes I wonder just where all of those words have gone, because I feel like I have so many unfinished projects that I must still be an undergrad. Seriously. It feels like it is taking forever to finish things. I think part of that is the fact that I’m often working on more than one book at a time. Like right now I’m doing rewrites of Under Jupiter and doing a first draft of MF. Also, I have about an hour a day (if I’m lucky) to get all my words and rewriting in. And that’s if I’m not so tired that I just pass out the moment the house is quiet. I do wish that I would have been tracking daily the project I was working on, that would really help me understand where all the words have gone.
But I made it! Deep breath. To Two Hundred Thousand Words. Which means I can totally do this. I can totally do this. And come September. I will have finished things. And they will be wonderful.
JEH
Writing 365,000 Words in a Year Update #21
Okay, this week wasn’t as good as last week. The main reason for that is I wrote nothing one day because I was too addicted to reading The Girl on the Train. I consciously made this choice, but I’m still wondering if that makes it okay or not. I did write more the next day to make up for it, as you can see on the chart. I made it to the gym twice, and I also made it out to writing group for a weekly writing session, where I got a lot of work done on Under Jupiter. I also found a new favourite tea collection which is currently fuelling my writing session.
From the chart, you can also see that I did better this week at concentrating on Under Jupiter. I’m working on it at the moment, actually, but am taking a quick break to write this blog that I was supposed to write yesterday. Oops! Ah well, I have some more interesting blogs coming up for you next week, including more book discussions and fabulous pictures. Like this picture of the candle and pretty books sitting beside me on my desk.
This coming week, I’m expecting to see a high word count. Mostly because I need to push to finish Under Jupiter, and a couple other projects I’d like to self-pub soon, because I love them and I’m excited to share them, and I’m also kind of addicted to self-publishing. Yes, you heard that right.
Alright, time to get back to the real work. I hope you had a good week, and I’ll chat soon.
JEH
Stories and Adventure
Yesterday was one of those beautifully warm spring days, so I took the kids out for a mini-adventure. It reminded me that as a writer, how important it is to never stop experiencing, even if the experience—or maybe especially if—the experience is just around the corner. I put on my white mukluks, and off we went to the gutted truck I’d been seeing from the road for months.
Not far from my house, the city is in the process of building a new dog park, which meant that in the fall they stripped out some of the natural woods to make a few walking paths. We used to go adventuring in the woods, when they were a bigger, more mysterious tangle, and never came up on the truck cab that was revealed during construction.
Adventures come in all shapes and sizes and I’ve done a lot of traveling and a lot of adventuring. Some of these adventures have made it into my writing, and others are waiting to be spun into tales, and some are just journal entries in my photo books. But there are so many adventures I’ve had that just make me who I am, that make my characters who they are, and that just make me love life. So, we had a little adventure, I love it, I covered my boots in mud, and we came home and had a snack.
Yesterday was a great day, not just because of the adventure but because I bought myself that reward I discussed in my previous post for making it to the halfway point in my writing 365,000 words in a year goal. I bought myself a copy of Carve the Mark, by Veronica Roth, which happened to be on sale at Costco. Yay, cheap books! And a sweater. Just don’t tell my husband. Wait, my husband reads this blog… too late! So, I have a new book on my shelf, which I likely won’t get around to reading for a while. It has a nice cover, but and even nicer cover if you take the wrapping off. If you haven’t done that and check it out, do. I won’t ruin the surprise by posting a picture here.
I’m just going to look at it and smile.
JEH
Writing 365,000 Words in a Year Update #20
Well, yesterday I reached the official halfway point… And I’m currently only 3,400 words behind my goal!!!! *Celebration dance* *Throws flowers in the air*
I never planned on rewards for this challenge. Writing almost 180,000 words in six months feels like accomplishment enough. Especially when I have a near full-time day job, two crazy monsters and one crazy cat to look after the rest of the time. Let’s be honest, it can be very difficult most days. But this goal has taught me so much, even though I’m only halfway through. For instance, I’ve learned that I CAN write 1,000 words a day every day if I really set my mind to it, though writing over 600 words feels like a challenge on the busy days, but is really easy on the weekends (unless it is a jam-packed fun weekend of ice fishing).
This past week was a great week. I even had one 3,000 word day that I wasn’t expecting, though it was on a side project instead of the main project I’m working on drafting, which is MF. A lot of my word count lately comes from rewriting Under Jupiter. Since I drafted UJ about ten years ago, there is a lot of rewriting to do. I’m a much stronger writer now, and have an easier time picking out the plot gaps and character weaknesses that need to be filled in. In other words, there are a lot of missing words. Here’s a shot of my tracking sheet for the past week. You can also see that there were a couple days slightly under the 1,000 words. But at least I averaged out well!
When I set this massive goal back in September, I said I would be focusing on five major projects, and nothing else. That goal has definitely changed, though I did initially wrap up the Black Depths Universe, which was one of the projects. I’m currently working on drafting MF, which for now all I will say is an adult fantasy novel. The rewriting project, Under Jupiter, wasn’t initially budgeted for, because I didn’t take into account all the effort of rewriting, and all the new words I would be adding. These words will likely only count for the rewriting process, and when I get into third and forth drafts, that word count will disappear and I will have to go back to drafting new things to get my 1,000 words a day. After I finish drafting MF, I’m hoping to write a new adult fantasy. I’m pretty excited for this but I don’t think I’ll get around to it until at least June, and that will probably be the last project of this year long goal, and hopefully by then I’ll be at my 365,000 words.
So, while I wasn’t planning on getting myself rewards, I feel that this halfway point is deserving of a little something, mostly because there is still a long way to go! I’m thinking a book or a chocolate bar or something. Nothing big. Just a little something to put an even bigger smile on my face.
How is your writing going?
JEH
Novel Title Reveal!
Alright, I’m finally ready to tell you all the title of my new project. This is a Young Adult Science Fiction Mystery the I’ll be releasing in Late April or Early May of 2017. I has a few rounds of rewrites to go through yet, but I look forward to sharing tidbits with you each week as the launch gets closer.
So, here’s a mock cover I did when I drafted the book a number a years ago (yes, years). The actual cover is still being worked on by the amazing Leah Keeler. But don’t worry, I reveal it sometime before the launch.
So for now, the title: Under Jupiter
It’s going to be awesome.
JEH
Self-Publishing: Formatting E-Books
It’s been a while since I did a post on self-publishing. Most of you are probably here for the book discussions, but hopefully a few of you are interested in the writing and publishing process too.
Recently, I decided to make a pretty major investment. I bought Vellum. And it has changed my life! So what is Vellum, you ask? Vellum is an E-Book formatter, and it’s lovely. No longer do I have to spend hours working out my indentations and page breaks, section breaks, or chapter breaks. I can just import my Word file to Vellum and let it work it’s magic! So far, I’ve reformatted the first two Black Depths books, and I hope to do the others soon. The reformatting does take a bit of time, as my old files were formatted really strangely in order to get them to import onto Kindle and Smashwords correctly. So far, the Vellum files seems to import onto Kindle and Smashwords with ease, and I haven’t come across any problems.
Now Reformatted!
Now, Vellum isn’t perfect. It doesn’t format paperbacks, which means I still have to do that myself. And there aren’t a ton of style options, but there are enough. At least for me. And there are pretty ornamental breaks, drop caps, and chapter headings.
Really, in Self-publishing, it’s nice to be able to save time wherever possible. And if I can save time formatting so that I can spend a bit more time marketing, drafting, or re-writing my next project, then I’m pretty happy. But like I mentioned, Vellum was an investment. But I think it was worth the hole it put in my purse.
JEH
Writing 365,000 Words in a Year Update #19
Ah, let’s just start this post off with a nice cup of tea, shall we?
Ah, that’s better! *refreshed*
Right, well. What have I been up to lately? Writing, writing, writing. Though I still haven’t got up to my target word count. I’m almost exactly halfway through this personal challenge, and I’m feeling pretty darn good about what I have accomplished so far this year. As you can see from the table below, I’ve begun tracking which projects I’m working on when. Hopefully this will help me develop more consistency with projects, and not jump around so much. I’m supposed to be focusing on UJ, which is a rewrite, which means that somedays I have to write other things to get my 1,000. The good thing about my rewriting process is that I tend to add words. I write clean, plain first drafts, and fill things up with detail on the second go around. I started rewriting UJ at around 63,000 words, and already I’m up over 67,700 words.
As for the gym, I know I haven’t updated that one in a while, but I have been going more regularly, usually at least two times a week. I’m still listening to audiobooks when I’m there, and I love it. I’ll have an audiobook review up this weekend.
As for my GoodReads goal, I set it for 60 books this year and I’ve so far finished 9 books, and GoodReads tells me I’m one book ahead. Yay, me! I’m also nearly finished two other books so I should be at eleven books soon.
Going back to the abbreviations above, I’m sure you’re all dying to hear the name of my new novel. Well, it’ll be here on the weekend, too. I can’t wait to reveal it.
JEH
Weekly Writing Prompt
Something magical is about to happen under this lamppost, set the scene by beginning with description.
365K in Year Update #18
Well, this past week was horrible for writing. In part because I went on a mini-vacation to a friends farm where we went ice fishing. It was a great time but I really let my word count slide. 
As you can see, as off a couple days ago I am 6K behind my goal. This means I have some busy days ahead. I’m not going to list all of my excuses here, because they are just excuses. Even though I’m busy and stressed and life is crazy, writing 1K a day takes me around 30 minutes and makes me feel better. I should be doing it, but sometimes I just don’t. But I’m going to do better, because this goal means a lot to me. Last night I sat down with my notebook and wrote 1K, the day before I managed around 500 words. I’m going to keep pushing on this, and I’m really enjoying the return to writing by hand. There is just something indescribable about the hand-mind-creative connection when writing with pen and paper. Writing is not the same on the computer, at least not for me. It isn’t near as immersive, and I find my worlds aren’t as richly detailed.
Below are a few amazing pictures from my ice fishing trip. I caught two fish and they tasted amazing! It was nice to do something fun in the winter, other than just sitting inside and reading that is. I was a guest at my wonderful friends farm, which you can read more about on her blog, North Chick Farm Shop. It was a great weekend. What did you get up to?
The
JEH
J. E. H U N T E R 