Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Writing in Public, Year 1, Month 2, Days 26-31

Michael Salsbury
I am continuing my adoption of Dean Wesley Smith's Writing in Public challenge of the past couple of years.

After posting my weekly status on Sunday, January 25, I did some work on the Alliance Series Bible, taking it from 25,731 words to 25,785.  There were two breakthroughs during the session.  After a couple of years working on the universe, I finally know the names of two of the alien races that play a pivotal role in it.  This inspired me to write a 406-word post on the ASL blog site about the Comm System and how it works in the Alliance Universe.  It bears some similarity to how the communications system in the Star Trek series worked, but with some refinement and expansion.  I also wrote 10 opening lines that evening for a total of 435 words.

On Tuesday, I wrote a synopsis for a novel set in the Alliance universe.  I spent time in the evening brainstorming all the possible problems and conflicts I could imagine my heroes encountering in the situation I was about to place them into.  I also wrote a 1,136-word post for my How to Write Fiction blog on improving your productivity as a writer.  I listened to some workshops from the Superstars Writing Seminars event in 2010 which were very interesting.

Wednesday evening, I wrote some posts for How To Write Fiction on the subject of character creation.  I've read and learned quite a bit about it and wanted to synthesize what I'd learned into a post for other writers.  It was a three-part article.  In the third part, I demonstrated how I use the techniques to develop a character for a book I'm working on.  In the process, I actually had some breakthroughs on the story that character is a part of.

Thursday at lunchtime, I sat in the cafeteria at work and fleshed out more of the backstory and character details for the Alliance character I used as the example in the article the previous night.  I wound up with a good synopsis of his backstory and a synopsis of the first story I intend to use him in.  I actually felt my mind really "click" on character creation and backstory in a way it never had before, which was exciting.

Friday for lunch I sat with a friend and talked about the Alliance universe, the character, backstory, and lots of other things.  He provided some good ideas and insights that I'll be mulling over as I continue to develop the story.  Friday was a busy day at the office.  I left for home with a serious backache and a tired brain, so didn't write anything other than some work emails and a series of texts to wish my dad a happy birthday.

All the work on the characterization article generated 4,130 words for the How To Write Fiction site, combined with the 1,136-word post on productivity, for 5,266 words in all.

Saturday I was up early.  My backache from Friday remained, or perhaps even worsened overnight.  Despite this, I continued working on the character sketch from earlier in the week and tried to finish the final post in the character-creation series for How To Write Fiction.  Saturday afternoon we packed up a change of clothes and headed to a hotel downtown for the Columbus Winter Beerfest.  While this wasn't writing activity, it did provide material for beer reviews and a beer festival article that I can later create for Columbus Beer Scene.  I did get a short event information post up on the blog, for 148 words.

Today, I completed this post which I'll be counting in the February words.

---

THIS WEEK'S WORD COUNTS
  • This Blog: 0 total
  • Columbus Beer Scene: 148 words
  • How To Write Fiction: 5,266 words
  • The ASL Blog: 406 words
  • Opening Lines Written:  10 lines, 435 words
TOTAL WORDS FOR THIS PERIOD: 6,255 words (avg. 893.6 per day)

---

JANUARY 2015 WORD COUNTS

Novels:
  • Fully Invested: 0 words (notes and backstory)
  • The Alliance (series): 0 words
  • Alien Love Story: 0 words
  • Driven To Kill: 0 words
  • Local Gods: 0 words
  • The Black Eagles: 0 words
  • The Old Hotel: 0 words
  • Thief of Police: 652 words
Short Stories:
  • The Mimas Object (a story in the Alliance universe): 0 words
Non-Fiction:
  • Introduction to Application Repackaging: 0 words
  • Troubleshooting Windows Applications: 0 words
  • Amazon Product Reviews:  0 words
Blogging:
  • Alliance for Sentient Lifeforms: 1,751 words
  • Begin Brewing: 2,624 words
  • Columbus Beer Scene: 2,244 words
  • How to Write Fiction: 5,857 words
  • Introduction to Application Repackaging: 0 words
  • Windows Desktop Administration: 344 words
  • This Blog: 1,071 words
  • Guest Posts for Other Blogs: 0 words
Opening Lines, Paragraphs, Pages:
  • Opening Lines Written: 45 lines (1,475 words)
  • Opening Paragraphs Written: 9
  • Opening Pages Written: 0
JANUARY 2015 - MONTH TO DATE WORDS: 16,018 (avg. 516.7 per day)

YEAR TO DATE PROGRESS

  • Month 1 (December 2014): 20,754 words
  • Month 2 (January 2015): 16,018 words
  • Month 3 (February 2015): 0 words
  • TOTAL WORDS WRITTEN: 36,772 words




About the Author

Michael Salsbury / Author & Editor

In his day job, Michael Salsbury helps administer over 1,800 Windows desktop computers for a Central Ohio non-profit. When he's not working, he's writing, blogging, podcasting, home brewing, or playing "warm furniture" to his two Bengal cats.

0 comments:

Post a Comment