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Monday, April 13, 2009

Slo Wri-tah

Yesterday, while most people were visiting with family, hunting Easter eggs, or whatever they decided to do to celebrate the holiday, hubby worked most of the day so, left to my own devices, I got in a good deal of writing time. Since the subject of speedy writing, of just pouring the words onto the page, has become an issue lately, I've been keeping track. No matter how I try, a good writing day for me is around 1,ooo new words on the page. I've found I spend about half my writing time producing new words. The other half, I spend going over the material I wrote the previous day or two and tweaking, layering in, etc. Most people tell me not to do this, but I have to. First of all, it brings me up to speed with where I left off in the story. Second, it brings the writing I have produced one step closer to being a finished product. Sorry all you prolific speed writers out there, but I just can't bring myself to let it all rip and end up with a first draft that will require intensive editing afterwards. I'd end up with a mess. I'm slow, but sure, and I've decided I'm comfortable with that. If I can consistently produce 1,000 words a day, that will give me a finished manuscript in 3 months time. That's plenty fast enough for me.

I hope you all had a good Easter weekend. I made the Pockets of Lemon cake yesterday. That thing is rich! I mean, sickeningly rich. One serving and I'm good in the sweet department for the rest of the week. Hubby liked it. He had a slice this morning with his coffee before going to work.

Another brewhaha in romanceland came to light over the weekend. Amazon has deranked most of the GLBT and erotic books listed on its site. Which means, they don't come up on the home page search engine. Since this caused such an uproar, Amazon is now trying to claim it was a glitch in the system. But there's documented evidence that someone made a conscious decision about this new policy. If you're interested, you can read all about it over at Dear Author. All of yesterday's posts (3 total) were dedicated to the controversy. Never a dull day in Romanceland.

Okay. I'm off to tweak another chapter and fill in a couple of missing scenes. Hope you all have a pleasant, productive day.

Devon

4 comments:

  1. Hey there, Devon!

    I'm having a great day! The sun is even shining at the moment, the songbirds are emptying the feeder AGAIN (gluttons), and I'm happily reading other people's writing. But tomorrow, or even better, maybe tonight, I'll get back to my own.

    Yay!

    One thousand new words a day is nothing to sneeze at, and if it's what works for you, then go for it.

    Yay!

    And for once (at least for today) I'm going to leave the Amazon thing alone. Not going to get riled up about it--at least not yet. This is me trying to save a little sanity.

    Yay!

    I had a late lunch of leftover birthday cake. Can ya tell I'm on a sugar high?!?!?

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  2. Devon, You're doing more than I am at this point. I'm lucky if I can get my e-mails responded to. I have been computer-less since thursday, and my fingers are itching REALLY bad.
    Do what feels good to you. Even if you only do 500 a day, it's still more than the day before, right? And I admit, I have to read over what I did the day before too. It puts me back in the story and flows better.
    I think the way you are doing it is fine. Enjoy your work, because I think THAT really shows through.
    I read a bit on the Amazon thing, and I think they are opening up a barrel of worms. I think they should re-evaluate. Quickly.

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  3. Magdalena, YAY! So happy you had a good day! LOL! I made the mistake of eating Lemon Pockets cake at lunchtime, too. At least I didn't get sleepy this afternoon. ;o)

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  4. Jennifer, glad I'm not the only one who reads up to the point where I left off. I wrote 1,097 words before noon today. YAY! Glad you're back! How did you survive the weekend without a computer?

    Yeah, that Amazon stuff is a bunch of bull. I think they'll probably reverse themselves pretty quick. They've got the whole blogosphere plus Twitter in an uproar over it.

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