1k-a-day Day 7

Day 6 word count: 2668
SS current word count: 43 357
LI current word count:
WS current word count:

Yesterday was a pretty smooth writing day for me. But I wanted to expand on something Tami mentioned in a previous post. She noted that she reads sections from her favourite books and analyses what the author did to discover what worked and hope to build similar skills in terms of her own writing style. I do this as well. In fact, I have a stack of books at the ready, one per work in progress, each with related fiction and non-fiction titles. For example, when I'm working through a fight scene, I'll skim through a few military history books, or if I'm aiming for high emotion between characters, I might re-read a moving scene from a current favourite. Am I stealing scenes? Stealing plot? Nope. I'm learning my craft, simply by reading - though at this point I don't read for mere enjoyment, I'm studying the author's pacing, use of tension, sense of immediacy, or distance.

Anyway - I was happy to know I'm not the only one who does this. I think I learned grammar from skimming books, thinking - how did _insert author name here_ punctuate a similar sentence? ;)

Happy writing this week!

Day 6 word count: 1,498
Parlor current word count: 6,769
WD current word count: 5993

Today is the end of the first week of 1k-a-day. I hope everyone participating has found that the first week wasn't as hard as you thought, yet the challenge has pushed you to write words that you wouldn't have written the past seven days. The first week of 1k-a-day has inspired me to make my book better. To find true voices for my characters and to take them on journeys I never dreamed could work within my plot.

I struggled through the holiday weekend, to find myself up bright and early on Tuesday looking forward to a day of writing, editing and researching. I did just that. Yesterday I completed all that I wanted to, I edited one and a half chapters, deleting words while still hitting beyond the 1,000 needed and read the first few pages of some of my favorite third person YA stories, trying to pull some of the magic out that I spoke of yesterday.

Keep working hard everyone. Remember, there will be a great YA book up for grabs on Friday for those of you who post your word counts so far. Good luck on finishing the first week off with a bang for day 7.