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Original Fiction Summer Goals


Pixileanin

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STATUS CHECK EVERYBODY!  IT'S JULY.  Summer's halfway over for me.  THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!!

 

Haha... don't panic. I just have to motivate myself to get this stuff done.

For me, I've stalled on the character vignettes.  Things got in the way, and I did... one.  I was only able to focus on a 20k fanfic project for the last two weeks, but there's 16k of that that I've been working on in June.  However, my short story deadline is coming up soon, so I've put aside the fanfic project, and I'm going to focus on OF short story ideas for two days, and then pick TWO over the weekend.  Have to knock out one before the July 15th deadline and one before the July 30th deadline.  Totally doable, right?  Right???  Sure it is.  If things go well, I'll also set aside some time each day to fiddle with my OF novel idea and keep that drafted outline moving along.  I've been thinking about it and talking to people about it, so it's moving in my head.  We'll call that progress and move along.

@Rumpelstiltskin How are those two chapters for July going?  Any new poetry coming along?  You met your June goal, that's great!

@MalfoysAngel Do you have that original one-shot cooking? Posted?  Where are you on that?

@teh tarik  HEY!  I'm checking on you.  Did you do your 3k OF short?  I haven't 'done' mine, but I'm doing some free writing tonight, and hopefully I'll get more ideas.

@Theia Are you ready for NaNo??  I hope so!  I bet your world looks really cool by now!

@MuggleMaybe Have you started that first draft?  Is it all nice and drafty?  Keep making those words, because I want something to read when you're done... purely selfish on my part, but hey, whatever works, right?

@StarFeather  Did the Urban Fantasy idea work for you?  Is your Muse whispering? 

@victoria_anne How's your progress on Hartwood Academy and its sequel?  Got your blog ideas all set?  That should be really cool. I can't wait to see you get yourself out there!  You're a few steps ahead of me on that.  Whew!  So much to do!

@Margaret Did you start your OF story this summer?  I have one idea for mine, but I feel like I need to do more free writing to get more options.  My Muse isn't in love with an idea yet.

@TheGoldenKneazle Hey there!  I bet you're climbing mountains by now, but hopefully you have your pen and notebook with you.  Keep wording, my friend!

@danicasyer How is the daily writing coming?  Even if you write every few days, it still counts.  I'm going for weekly writing, because sometimes my days fill up and then I'm exhausted at night and just want to sleep.  Did you draft your idea?

@Rhaenyra  Awesome!  How's the 5k going?  And are your characters still fake dating?  Oh yeah, here's NaNo!  How's your wc in the first five days?

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Good luck with the drafting @Pixileanin .   What sort of WC goal do you have for the 2 short stories?  It should be doable to get them done over the course of 3 weeks.  Sorry to hear about stalling on the character pieces.  Good luck with all your projects!

I'm just shy of 15k on my romance piece.  I haven't written anything today, but I need to write 2k to get on pace for my 50k goal this month.  I doubt I'll have enough in the project to take up all my word count goal for the month, but it will hopefully get me most of the way there.

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2 hours ago, Pixileanin said:

STATUS CHECK EVERYBODY!  IT'S JULY.  Summer's halfway over for me.  THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!!

 

Haha... don't panic. I just have to motivate myself to get this stuff done.

For me, I've stalled on the character vignettes.  Things got in the way, and I did... one.  I was only able to focus on a 20k fanfic project for the last two weeks, but there's 16k of that that I've been working on in June.  However, my short story deadline is coming up soon, so I've put aside the fanfic project, and I'm going to focus on OF short story ideas for two days, and then pick TWO over the weekend.  Have to knock out one before the July 15th deadline and one before the July 30th deadline.  Totally doable, right?  Right???  Sure it is.  If things go well, I'll also set aside some time each day to fiddle with my OF novel idea and keep that drafted outline moving along.  I've been thinking about it and talking to people about it, so it's moving in my head.  We'll call that progress and move along.

I'm going to sound like a broken record since I tell so many people this but I believe in these words and I'll say this: YOU CAN DO IT, YOU GOT THIS! :D  *cheers*  I hope that you'll be able to write everything and or many things during that time! ;w;  Summer may be coming to an end still but more reason to use that time to keep going, I would say! I mean it's good to take breaks if you need to but if you want to keep going with your goals, I would say just keep doing the best you can do and eventually you'll get there! ;w; 

Ahhh sorry to hear about you having to stall the vignette because of things getting in the way but I also understand since I can also relate to that with some of my stories and other works before but hopefully everything else will and or is going well!  I hope that you'll be able to work on that short story as well as work on the fanfiction project and the fanfictions that you have  Here's to hoping and wishing you the best of luck in knocking those goals for July 15th and July 30th deadlines! Don't let those deadlines and or anything else get to you because I believe in you and I know that if you keep at it that you'll be able to do it! And yes, it's totally doable! ;w;   And yes, I hope you'll be able to do the OF novel as well! And whoo hoo for progress though--I hope that you'll be able to keep charging through this month and into August! :) 

 

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@danicasyer How is the daily writing coming?  Even if you write every few days, it still counts.  I'm going for weekly writing, because sometimes my days fill up and then I'm exhausted at night and just want to sleep.  Did you draft your idea? 

I'll admit that I have to do three separate things in order to keep up with my daily writing and they are: writing in my notebook(s), using my phone to take notes as well as type rough drafts, or type on the desktop in order to keep writing since it's something I've been trying to do more often and it actually helps since I get puff off by typing on the desktop due to sentence structures and or if I can't write in my notebook, the phone works too!  Anything to keep writing right?  Also weekly writing does sound really good since I've had a busy week this week although I admit to try and write around past midnight to almost 5 AM which isn't good for my sleep but I'm trying to write whenever I'm awake and or can do so really but that sounds good even if I do need a better sleep!

Also since I'm doing NanoWriMo, can I get a motivation/encouragement/cheer from you if that's not too much to ask? (wait is it selfish to ask motivation and encouragement to ask others for one?) ;w;  I always feel motivated by anything positive be it well wishes to encouragement in all honesty and I could use some even though I have wrote alot and have wrote around the word count goal I have for my NanoWriMo goal. (20,837 to be specific!) ;w; 

 

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12 hours ago, Pixileanin said:

@teh tarik  HEY!  I'm checking on you.  Did you do your 3k OF short?  I haven't 'done' mine, but I'm doing some free writing tonight, and hopefully I'll get more ideas.

@PixileaninYou gave me a bit of a fright with that loud HEY! :ninja: Now i know I'm being watched. :P

But srsly, thanks for checking in again, Pix! :wub:

You'll be pleased to know that I have completed the first draft of that OF short, because I opted to do JulNo, and so have managed to sit down and  get some *words* out! It's unfortunately not 3K, but mid 5K, and I'm not too happy about this, because I feel like I've been waffling a bit. This always happens when I do NaNo - my NaNo first drafts are always unreadable. So next step for this is to extensively edit and re-write and hopefully be done by mid-July. :)

12 hours ago, Pixileanin said:

For me, I've stalled on the character vignettes.  Things got in the way, and I did... one. 

Hey, look, you did one! How did that go? Did it help you understand your OF character a bit better? Was it a difficult process writing it? Keep going, love!

8 hours ago, danicasyer said:

Also since I'm doing NanoWriMo, can I get a motivation/encouragement/cheer from you if that's not too much to ask? (wait is it selfish to ask motivation and encouragement to ask others for one?) ;w;  I always feel motivated by anything positive be it well wishes to encouragement in all honesty and I could use some even though I have wrote alot and have wrote around the word count goal I have for my NanoWriMo goal. (20,837 to be specific!) ;w; 

@danicasyer I'm not Pix but I believe you can do NaNo! You're doing great -- every word counts. Keep plodding on and don't look back. Think about the parts in your novel that you're looking forward to writing, and either write them first, or slowly work your way towards them. You'll find it easier to write things you're excited above, and once you've got the momentum, it may be easier to carry on -- at least that's how I feel. :P Post in the Milestones thread, in the Crazies Cafe! And keep everyone updated with your progress, so we can check in with you time to time! You can do this. :D

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Guest Rumpelstiltskin

The two-chapter goal is on track -- I'm nearly to the halfway (ish) mark of the first chapter for this month, which is pretty good.  I haven't started working on the poetry piece for the first of next month yet, but I might swap August & September's poetry goals. [So, essentially, I'm right on track with my OF Summer goals but a couple days behind on my JulNo goals. ?]

You can totally meet your deadline, Pix! \O/ I believe in you. Best of luck in choosing which short story you're going to write -- that's usually one of the most difficult parts for me [I'm not an excellent decision-maker when it comes to writing sometimes ?]. 

Cookies and octopuses [octopi? octopodes? ...octopuses?] for everyone! ??

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Hi all!  After a few frustrating days for free writing and getting *wind whistling through the trees* I decided to gt.back to my roots and do what worked for me for the first four months of the year.  

I was writing these one shots for this ffnet competition, you see... they had prompts to choose from and we had to write three one shots every two weeks, of varying lengths, and I was doing these and hitting deadlines and it WA a glorious thing.

But the hardest part about OF right now for me, is character generation.  So I thought, wait a sec, people do these Muggle AU things all the time.  Why can't i?  

So I went back to the ffnet competition  thread for this term, even though I'm not playing, and I loaded the prompts list, and under the character suggestions for the HP character, I substituted random names, PRETENDING they were similar to the suggested HP characters, and... VOILA!!  I HAD CHARACTER SHELLS!

So I'm gonna do this more for a few days and see if I can't shake loose that short story I'm supposed to have done by the 15th.

Guys, this could work!

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Guest Tanda

There a few novel contests promising such as making anime or film in my country. Write or not write?

 

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@StarFeather  If you have an idea, maybe go for it?  It takes a lot of time, which is my issue.  I don't have a lot of free time.  Good luck!

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  • 5 weeks later...

So, I ended up travelling for over half the month of July and applying for a program (for which I submitted 20 pages of OF as a writing sample) so my world-building didn't go exactly as planned, BUT I have a fair idea of it and I managed to reach half of the targets on my list. AND a completely unpredicted BRAND NEW plunny which then turned into a plot which then turned into a complete structure for it. I'd say that was fairly productive even if not as planned? :D 

 

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Wow @Theia, that's fantastic!  You rocked your summer goals!  All the cake for you!

 

I'm slowly getting my summer goals in gear.  I've given myself until the end of August to finish them up.  My schedule wasn't great, BUT I have six short story ideas that are plotted and are steadily being drafted.  Hopefully I can report soon that I will have half of those as finished short stories and call it a success.  I had to put my longer story goals on hold while I worked on the shorts.  Apparently, I'm not great with juggling multiple story lines with my current schedule.  My life changes next week when the kids go back to school, so I need to take things as they come until a routine emerges.

How did everyone else do?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I managed to write five chapters for HP founders era and two chapters for Moribito fandom. 

I'm wondering if I should try one more writing contest in my country.

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@Pixileanin wow you're a machine! SIX short story ideas - that's amazing! and it's incredible that you get so much done while taking care of your kids as well - I'd definitely say your summer was a success even if it didn't go as planned. :)

@StarFeather that is brilliant Kenny, way to go! I definitely think you should enter more contests if you feel like it - it would definitely give you a lot of practice writing different things! 

(also psst, if any of you want to get to writing more OF, I have a simple but fun challenge up)

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Alrighty, all my fellow llama-riding cohorts, Summer is about to be a fading memory, so let's see what we've got. 

Shall we?

 

Here were my original Original Fiction Goals for the Summer:

1) Write a short story/ one-shot between 1k-6k.  Deadline July 15th. - THIS DID NOT HAPPEN

2) Write a short story under 10k.  Deadline July 31st. - THIS ALSO DID NOT HAPPEN

3) Write a Sci Fi/Fantasy short story under 17k.  Deadline October 1st. - THIS IS HAPPENING, PEOPLE.  I HAVE A THING.  I HAVE A SUMMARY DRAFT, AND I HAVE TIME TO FINISH THIS!!!

4) Write one character vignette for each of my original characters who want to be in my OF novel. - I DID ONE.  MEH.

5) Make visible progress on my OF plot by doing outline work, writing setting snippets, or creating any other words I can throw down.   - SORTA DID SOME OF THIS, BUT NOT WITH ANY VIGOR.

HOWEVER, these other things happened:

I wrote a poem for the Poetry Challenge, and it was OF.

I wrote a HP one-shot for the combined Snazzy Words and Filch In Love Challenges.

I got a Short Story Course, followed it through, and developed SIX short story ideas, one of which is going to be that story for the October deadline.  The others will have to wait until that one is finished, because I don't have time to multitask with my limited free time.

So, there's my summer.  I'm allowing myself to finish the first draft of that story (which I'm entering in a few HPFT challenges here) by the end of the month.  Yay!

:llamabanana:  (rides llama off into the sunset)

 

But seriously, let's hear from everyone else. How'd you do?  One word?  Three words?  A few stories or chapters?

@Rumpelstiltskin How did your second set of two chapters go?  Did you get that poem up?  I can't wait for your other poetry!  It's gotta be better than mine.  lol!

@MalfoysAngel Did you muster up the oneshot?  Are the poems in the works?

@teh tarik How did your two shorts go? Yay for drafting the first one!!  Is the second one coming along?

@Theia You rocked your goals!  Congrats!  Anything on the horizon for you?

@MuggleMaybe How's the first draft?  Did you get to 'the end', or is the plot 'resting' like mine is?  

@StarFeather You've been working hard at your writing!  Did you decide on those contests and what you're planning to do?

@victoria_anne How was the editing?  Did you get the plan for your Everwolf Chronicles sorted?

@Margaret Did you start your OF story?  Did you finish it?  Are you in the middle?  (I hate that middle part!!)

@TheGoldenKneazle Did the plot map for Rocket Run and NaNo work for you this year?  How far into the 75k did you get?

@danicasyer Did you draft that short story?  I've been struggling so bad with OF that I bought a Short Story Course to knock me out of it ... hopefully you didn't need to spend money to do yours.  :P  How did NaNo go for you?

@Rhaenyra How was the draft of your fake dating novel?  Did you hit the July 31 deadline, or is it still in the works?

 

 

Also, if you guys want to do an OF AUTUMN GOALS thread, I'd be happy to start one in September.  I have PLANS... and more PLANS... and, you know, plans.  And stuff.

Leave a message at the sound of the beep...

 

 

 

 

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@Pixileanin That's great, Pix  - looks like you made the most of your summer with writing, even if it didn't all follow your plans. Six short story ideas is amazing!

I believe my original goals were these:

Quote

 

Anyway, my goals for writing OF in the next few months:

1. One-shot, short (~3K) hopefully by 15 July

2. Longer short-story, (~8K), hopefully by mid August.

 

 

So, yes, I met my first goal. Finished the whole short story (turned out to be nearly 6K) by 15 July.

Second story - nope, not even started writing. I did not plan to get sucked into the House Cup for the last month -- but I did, and so put all writing aside. I have made a few notes about this story, though, and so I should probably start to plan it out and then do a big writing spurt for NaNo and get as much of a first draft written as possible. It's definitely not going to be 8K - probably a little longer.

Now I'm going to try and ease back into writing. :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ahh Pix thank you for checking in! Unfortunately, absolutely everything was derailed by a couple of family events, a last-minute roadtrip, and then the frantic setting up of professional paperwork for my new job O.o So my goals have not progressed at allll in the last six weeks!

HOWEVER it has been super inspiring to look back and see what people have achieved! I'm about to move to a new town for my new job and won't know many people so forsee those summer goals becoming mad Autumn (NaNo anyone?!) goals :D fingers crossed eh!

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  • 4 weeks later...

@Pixileanin in case my absence wasn't hint enough, I totally did not finish.  I'm about halfway through, maybe a little more.  Instead of finishing that I ended up coming up with half a dozen new story ideas, because I didn't have enough that I wanted to write.  Oh well.  Progress!  Congrats on all the things you managed to accomplish!

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