Sometimes, I write something in TWoS, and then a few weeks later my brain goes, “Hey, remember that thing you wrote back in scene X? That works really perfectly with Y that needs to happen now.”
And I go, “Hot damn” and dance around a little bit in excitement.
Yay for (un)intended(?) connections!
~Ethelinda
I just finished up what will be part two of TWoS.
Just over 94,500 words for the whole story thus far.
Part three might end up being a bit shorter than the other two, though I’m not quite sure yet. Part two still needs some work as I go along and post it, but it’s a solid draft.
It feels really, really good to be making so much progress on this. I’m excited about this story, and how good it will (hopefully!) be once I’m all done.
~Ethelinda
So, it seems that I’ve gained quite a few followers over the last few weeks and months! Welcome! I don’t know how many of you are following my writing or not, but thanks for the interest. 🙂
For anyone who is interested in following my current story, The Wizard of Suomen, you can find links to all the chapters on the “Land of Winds: The Wizard of Suomen” page. The chapters are each linked to the previous and following chapters within each post as well.
Here’s a summary of the story:
The Wizard of Suomen follows Ilari Virtanen, a powerful magic-user in a land prejudiced against magic, as he attempts to defend his country from the aggression of a neighboring country with many strong magic-users. Throughout a long, cold Suomilen winter, faced with new and terrible magic from enemies getting ever closer to home, Ilari struggles to protect his land with few allies and opposition seemingly on all sides. With Suomen’s King making what seem to be an increasingly unwise series of decisions about the war, the soldiers, statesmen and courtiers around Ilari must make their own choices about where the real danger to Suomen lies. Can the Wizard of Suomen overcome misunderstanding, prejudice and treachery in time to save not only himself, but everything that he cares about?
Come find out which way the Winds will blow….
~Ethelinda
(Maybe I’ll do a monthly writing summary, just to further motivate myself.)
Written in August:
27,121 words – The Wizard of Suomen
I do sometimes work on my other stories/writing projects as well, which I’ll indicate in the future, but this past month I really focused on TWoS – obviously a productive choice! 🙂
~Ethelinda
Since I sat down to write last Saturday evening, I have written almost 15,000 words of The Wizard of Suomen; the total word count is now over 70,000. It’s unlikely I’ll have this good a week again for awhile, but it feels wonderful to have made such solid progress.
I’ve got the whole rest of the second part of the story well laid-out in my head now, so I should be able to write that pretty steadily, even if I don’t manage to be quite this prolific! Overall, the story breaks up into roughly three parts, at least in my head. (Chapter 14, as I post it here, will finish out what I think of as part one, in case anyone is wondering.)
Also, this week’s progress means I’ve got a much better “lead” between where I’m posting and where I’m writing, so the chance that I’ll have to switch to posting chapters every other week is greatly lessened.
I hope everyone who’s reading this is enjoying it, and excited about what’s coming up! I definitely am. 🙂
~Ethelinda
What feels even better than having written 10,000+ words this week?
Remembering that it’s only (very early on) Wednesday!
😀
~Ethelinda
I’m grateful that the “step away from it for awhile” tactic works as a method for getting over tiredness or writer’s block for me. It has always felt to me as though I say to my brain, “Okay, just run this in the background for awhile, and let’s see what the results are later,” and then I can stop focusing consciously on whatever scene or section is giving me trouble. And my brain does that, it lets the ideas brew subconsciously, and I’ve found that often even just a day later, I suddenly feel much more like I know what I need to write, or like the words are coming to me again. Sometimes it takes longer than a day, of course, but it always works eventually.
Which is probably just a lot of rambling to say: Brains are cool. 🙂
I do think it helps me as a motivational tool as well, though. To not think about it as “I have writer’s block” or “I’m stuck on this scene,” but rather, “My brain just needs some time to work on this subconsciously,” or “Need to let this scene percolate for a bit.” It sounds much less daunting that way, much less negative, which in turn makes motivating myself to try again a day or two later much easier.
For other writers: do you have an experience like this? Or do you deal with feeling stuck in other ways? I’m curious to know how other people think about this issue.
Now, probably time to stop rambling (and mixing my computer and coffee metaphors).
~Ethelinda
Just broke 50,000 words on The Wizard of Suomen. 😀
~Ethelinda
I was getting close and wanted to break 45,000 words for The Wizard of Suomen tonight. I actually made it to just over 46,000 words. It feels really good to be making such progress on this draft! 😀
Using a blog as motivation for working on this story more consistently has been an interesting process. It’s clearly helping, even though I’ve only been doing it for a short while. My life is somewhat uncertain and unsettled in a lot of ways right now (some good, some not so good), and in the past I’ve found it difficult to work on my fiction in those circumstances. It feels very good to be able to work on this story consistently despite that uncertainty, though, so I’m glad that this seems to be working as a motivational tool. Concrete goals and progress are definitely helpful.
~Ethelinda
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