The Beauty of Frankenstein

Today's enormous word count may be considered a bit of a cheat, but it's a productivity trick I figured out during graduate school. What I did was gather all of the plot and character summaries that I have already written and then cut-and-pasted them into a text-heavy outline. I call these things my "Frankenstein" drafts, because they are a monstrous hodge-podge of text from different sources. Technically I wrote almost no new stuff, BUT by taking all of the stuff that I have written and pulling it together in one spot, I get a very rewarding view of how much work I have actually done. Furthermore, when I already know that the draft is ugly, I feel no qualms about visciously editing.

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Today's writing totals:
Novel: 1,752 words
Blog: 126 words
DAILY TOTAL: 1,878 words

NOVEMBER RUNNING TOTAL: 12,804/15,000 words

Distractions

If one were charitable, one would say that the word count is meager today. If one were not charitable, one might call me lazy. That may be so, sir...

BUT

I have an iPhone 3G now.

Furthermore...

I just watched the fantastic new Futurama movie, Bender's Game.

Not so smug now, are ya?!

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Today's writing totals:
Novel: 20 words
Blog: 53 words
DAILY TOTAL: 73 words

NOVEMBER RUNNING TOTAL: 10,926/15,000 words

Poem: "Shell"

I am a shell... remnant of a dead thing.
You could lift me with just one hand.
You could press my pale lips to your ear,

and imagine an ocean
in the void.

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Today's writing totals:
Novel: 449 words
Journal: 393 words
Blog: 33 words
DAILY TOTAL: 875 words

NOVEMBER RUNNING TOTAL: 10,853/15,000 words

Bean

In response to a posting on Elevate the Ordinary, I wanted to write a heady intellectual treatise on my views of the difference between belief and faith. Unfortunately it's about two hours past my bedtime. I've put it in the queue, though. Perhaps it'll show up on another evening, when the novel isn't moving.

Instead, here's a link to Bean, my favorite "light" word processor for the Mac. It's free, easy to use, and remarkably full-featured.

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Today's writing totals:
Novel: 985 words
Blog: 73 words
DAILY TOTAL: 1,058 words

NOVEMBER RUNNING TOTAL: 9,978/15,000 words

Overdone Is Still Done

I tend to overdo things. Today's objective was to write a five-sentence plot summary of the novel I'm rewriting, but instead I wrote a 900 word summary. The writers out that will recognize that writing 900 words when 60 should do is not exactly commendable. That being said, it sure feels good to see the sprawling 50,000+ words of my first draft re-envisioned with some coherence within two pages.

For those keeping score, I have now completed steps (1) and (4) of the Snowflake Method, while skipping (2) and (3).

Normally I am so very good about following rules.

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Today's writing totals:
Novel: 854 words
Blog: 98 words
DAILY TOTAL: 1,052 words

NOVEMBER RUNNING TOTAL: 8,724/15,000 words