October 2016 Writing Progress.
This is my October 2016 Writing Progress Report.
Introduction
This is my October 2016 writing progress report. Normally I would state my work completed from September, events from September, my planned work for October, and planned events for October. Since this is my first report, I will also include information prior to September 2016.
June, July, and August 2012
On June 10 2012, I purchased Blake Snyder’s book Save the Cat. I had written a screenplay in 2007 and had studied screenwriting over the years. I was inspired by Snyder’s book to take the lessons of screenwriting and apply them to writing short prose fiction. Screenplays are typically about 24000 words long and I figured that I could tighten my narrative to 6000 word short stories. In a manic brainstorming session, I came up with the basic framework for six short stories.
The first story I planned to write was The Prisoner of Tarnal. It was an easy choice since it was a prequel story to the three Gahrn series stories that I had written in 1993, 1994, and 1995. I had the background and an ending which set up some things I paid off in the other stories. I worked on that story and finished the first draft on August 5, 2012. Since I felt good about completing the story I started the second story. Its working title was Dystopia. I progressed on it but life intervened in October and I stopped writing halfway through.
December 2012
I typed up what I had for Dystopia. By then, I had renamed it C. A. T. because of an idea I had in a dream and put into the story. C. A. T. was 3767 words but only half finished. I stopped writing. C. A. T. and the other four stories remained unfinished.
November and December 2015
I returned to the unfinished C. A. T. story and finished it on December 12, 2015. It was three years later, but I had finally finished the first draft.
January 2016
My 2016 new year’s resolution was to write the four unfinished stories from 2012. The next story I planned to write was the story I had called Time Bomb. I made the story sheets this month and came up with eight scenes for the story. The story had a new name, it was now called 4 Humours. On a plane ride to Orlando for the Harry Potter Celebration at Universal Orlando, which was held on January 29 to 31, 2016, I started writing the first scene.
February and March 2016
I felt like I was ready to knock it out, but by the end of February, I had only completed the first scene. On March 25th, Good Friday, I wrote the second scene.
April 2016
I started the third scene on April 1st, April Fool’s Day. At that point I was frustrated. I had not put writing at the top of my list of things to accomplish, so I didn’t write much. My plan was to write one story every three months to get the four done by the end of the year. I had to come up with a way to get that done. It must have been my upcoming birthday that motivated me. I had to find a way to get a reliable number of words written each week.
What was a reasonable amount to write each week? I had to find a minimum amount that I could achieve. It takes about four hours for me to write the first draft of a scene. The scenes are about 800 words long. It came down to deciding that it was worth taking four hours a week to write. So I planned to write scenes three to eight in the next six weeks. I thought that I could do that if I made it my highest priority. I finished scene three and part of scene four in April. That was much better progress.
May and June 2016
I finished 4 Humors on June 5, 2016. One scene was harder to write so it took seven weeks to write six scenes. I felt very successful compared to taking sixteen weeks for two scenes. I could do this. The fourth of the six stories was originally called L5. I would retitle it Space Station Sunyata. Wrote the story sheets, scene one and half of scene two in June. I also typed up two of eight scenes for 4 Humours. In nine of ten weeks, I wrote what was planned.
July 2016
On Space Station Sunyata I wrote the rest of scene two, scene three, and part of scene four.
I also typed rest of 4 Humours
In 11 of 15 weeks I wrote what I planned.
I attended Ohio Readers and Writers Expo held by OhioExpos.com on July 23, 2016. Wrote a separate post on it on 09-28-16.
Attended Confluence in Pittsburgh on 07-29-16 through 07-31-16. I will write a separate post covering the convention.
August 2016
I wrote scenes five, six, seven, and eight of Space Station Sunyata. It was completed.
I also prepared the story sheets for A Simple Request.
In 15 of 19 weeks I wrote what I planned.
Writing Progress from September 2016
I wrote six blog posts for garydavidgillen.com including my Welcome to my Website post linked below.
For A Simple Request I decided to change my format. I had planned 12 scenes at 500 words each. The plan was to write two scenes per week, which would increase my output from 800 up to 1000 words per week. My future plan is to up my output in 2017 to 2000 words per week.
I took a week off from work and finished the first eight scenes of A Simple Request. I finished scenes nine, ten, eleven, and twelve in the next two weeks. A Simple Request was complete. From start to finish, it took 23 days.
I typed all eight scenes of Space Station Sunyata.
In 19 of 23 weeks I wrote what I planned.
Events from September 2016
I attended the Western Reserve Writers Conference on 9-24. The Cuyahoga County Public Library. sponsored the conference. I wrote a separate post on it on 10-16-16.
Wrote the amount that I intended 22 out of 26 weeks between 04-18-16 and 10-16-16. I think the plan I created in April was a success.
Created a website called garydavidgillen.com by using Bluehost for my web hosting and writing it in WordPress.
Goals for October 2016
I came up with another plan for a format change. I wanted to write shorter stories that could be used in different markets than the five stories that I had completed. The stories are The Prisoner of Tarnal, Kay-Eye (The new name for C. A. T.), 4 Humours, Space Station Sunyata, and A Simple Request. The plan was to write two stories with four 500 word scenes, which makes the story lengths 2000 words.
Complete the story sheets for Dogman and Time Bomb (this story follows the original idea I had for Time Bomb, not the rewrite I used for 4 Humours).
Write all four scenes for Time Bomb.
Events for October 2016
Attend Capclave 10-7 to 10-9.
http://www.capclave.org/capclave/capclave16/
Go live with my website. The content on my website involves my writing journey, book reviews, convention recaps, and monthly progress reports. Make one post per week, rotating on the four topics. Read two novels per month and write a post on each. Post the monthly progress report once a month. So, the fourth post will be about conventions or my writing journey.
October 2016 Writing Progress