National Novel Writing DECEMBER

[Quill]

Margo, I'm curious about those word goals. Is that finished prose, or first draft prose in addition to any editing one may need to do during the month, or do edited words go toward the total? How does it work?

If the goal is 1K words per day of new words, and those 1K words need multiple drafts to be publishable, well, wow, that sounds like a full time job!

[Claudie]

I don't know for Margo, but all of my words are rewritten from the first drafts, and meant to be, well, maybe not publishable, but as close as I might. The edited pages are those I went through with my trusty e-redpen.

[Margo]

Margo, I'm curious about those word goals. Is that finished prose, or first draft prose in addition to any editing one may need to do during the month, or do edited words go toward the total? How does it work?

If the goal is 1K words per day of new words, and those 1K words need multiple drafts to be publishable, well, wow, that sounds like a full time job!

First draft only. To be honest, my first drafts are fairly clean. After 29 years of writing, they better be. Editing for me usually means correcting typos and a few awkwardly placed modifiers, maybe adding a little more emotional detail to a scene here and there based on the way later scenes fleshed out. I'm only writing at about 50-80% the speed of most people I've compared numbers with, depending on genre.

In general, I can edit at a rate of about 5,000-10,000 words per hour, depending on the type of editing I'm doing. The advantage of being an outliner...longer planning time in exchange for shorter edit time. It's pretty standard for me to draft, editing as I go. Then I pass it to my critters and do a revision based on their notes. Then to the editor, and one revision based on that. So, one slow edit-as-I-go draft and two passes for revision.

Of course, my productivity has increased drastically over the last few months, when I stopped talking and writing about writing in favor of actually writing. Every moment not spent on useless online promotion and blogging is another moment of writing time.

[Sommer Leigh]

I've only got 10 days left of Cybils and then I can return to my manuscript.

So when I start the thread for National Novel Writing JANUARY, I'll see you there?

Of course you will. I am ready to stop reading and starting writing again.

[Quill]

First draft only. To be honest, my first drafts are fairly clean. After 29 years of writing, they better be. Editing for me usually means correcting typos and a few awkwardly placed modifiers, maybe adding a little more emotional detail to a scene here and there based on the way later scenes fleshed out. I'm only writing at about 50-80% the speed of most people I've compared numbers with, depending on genre.

In general, I can edit at a rate of about 5,000-10,000 words per hour, depending on the type of editing I'm doing. The advantage of being an outliner...longer planning time in exchange for shorter edit time. It's pretty standard for me to draft, editing as I go. Then I pass it to my critters and do a revision based on their notes. Then to the editor, and one revision based on that. So, one slow edit-as-I-go draft and two passes for revision.

Of course, my productivity has increased drastically over the last few months, when I stopped talking and writing about writing in favor of actually writing. Every moment not spent on useless online promotion and blogging is another moment of writing time.

So, rather than spend a lot of time on the back end editing, you spend time up front outlining. So your monthly goal is 30K or 50K new words PLUS outlining and editing all those new words? Whew. And edit for your crit partner or others? Like I say, sounds like a full-time job. More power to you.

Myself, I haven't that much butt glue. I've got to mix writing with quite a bit of other activity or I get crazy and fat.

[Margo]

So, rather than spend a lot of time on the back end editing, you spend time up front outlining. So your monthly goal is 30K or 50K new words PLUS outlining and editing all those new words? Whew. And edit for your crit partner or others? Like I say, sounds like a full-time job. More power to you.

Yeah, I'm a busy little so-n-so. I'm having to scale the writing back a tad, from working my way up to a goal of about 75-77k words a month to about 50k, so I can work in the editing for the authors I've signed to a small press. I've got five of them, and I think I'm going to freeze it there until I can quit my job. Most people could quit on what I'm already making, but I live in a high cost area, and I need to be mindful of providing my own health insurance, etc.

Myself, I haven't that much butt glue. I've got to mix writing with quite a bit of other activity or I get crazy and fat.

If I'm not already crazy, I'm definitely pinging manic, and my poor dog is getting fat from lack of long walks. Going to try to make up for that on vacation next week.

[Margo]

So when I start the thread for National Novel Writing JANUARY, I'll see you there?

Of course you will. I am ready to stop reading and starting writing again.

WOOHOO! The secret writing sisters back on the rampage!

[Claudie]

Gosh, I knew your wrote clean first drafts, Margo, but I'm still impressed. Even with the planning I do (which is of course nowhere near your level), I spent so long rewriting and editing. I don't know if you've noticed how low my scores are these last days? Yet I've spent a fair amount of time working on it. I decided to try something new: I'm forcing myself to write as best as I can, and I hope that with time I'll pick up speed without losing the quality. This means, of course, that I'll need to stop sleeping if I want to have 30 pages rewritten well by the end of the Christmas Holidays. XD

[Margo]

Almost over, guys! How are we doing?

[Claudie]

I can't tell if I'm doing better or worse than expected. I've found more time than I thought to write, but getting through the revised pages is way longer than planned. At least I'm picking up speed.

[Margo]

It should be noted that anything written since Dec 27th was done while being in the family for the holidays. I sneak in time when I can ^^

That's the way to do it--what you can, whenever you can.