1k-a-day Day 4

I don't usually talk politics, but before we get down to business I wanted to ask all Americans to get out and vote today! It's a right we have here and we need to take full advantage of that right!

::climbs down off soapbox:::

Now onto our regularly scheduled program. Day 3 was harder than days 1 and 2. But how much hard is what you have to ask yourself. The good news is, day 4 should feel a lot like day 3. A routine can be started at this point, understanding the balancing act. Letting it work for you, not against you is the key.

Tami's day 3 word count: 1,032
Tami's November word count: 4,100
Overall word count: 28,792
Pieces of Halloween candy eaten: Waayyy to many. Stupid co-workers bringing leftovers to work! They're all to blame. ;)
Music: Vampire Weekend and Jakob Dylan
Mindset: I felt like I would have a ton of time today at work to start my 1k. Usually my days are slow. Of course today was just busy enough to keep me from writing. A Microsoft Word scare happened (I haven't gone through a November without one in the last 4 years), but all is okay! My word count wasn't great today, but I'm happy for each of those words.
Tami's day 4 word count: 0

Okay Tracy! How did work and 1k-a-day mix for you?
Good luck to everyone on Day 4! Remember, vote...vote...vote!

_____

How did is work for me? Oh, girl, it was tough. Especially making supper. I'm feeling some takeout coming on next week.

Tracy's Day 3 WC: 1206
Overall WC: 3493
Mindset: hurried and blurried and writing this post from work...bad, I know. Hopefully I'll bust through the 1300s today when I get home and hide away in my office. :) I'm newly inspired as my hubbie bought me some models from the movie, Dracula - and yes, I took them out of the box.

Tracy's Day 4 WC: 1343 words today. So long 1200s!

Congrats to everyone hanging in there!

Script Reading: Pregnant with Learning Opportunities

It started with a chair - a butt-worn, chocolate stained chair – so old it didn’t have a cup holder. I sat in it while watching the movie, Juno, at our small town movie theatre on a cheap Tuesday night - and I was blown away.

I was in awe of Diablo Cody’s slap-happy dialogue, and the actors who so casually delivered line after snarky line. This, I thought, was going to change the way I write. And it did – once I bought the script.

I’d never read a script before. I didn’t even know you could buy them until I searched Amazon.com one day, looking for the Juno DVD, and found the script. I ordered it from my local bookstore and a few weeks later it was mine.

Scripts are a bare bones kind of thing. Stark. Filled with strange formatting. Still, they have much to teach - especially if you need to beef up your dialogue. There’s nothing like reading the back and forth between characters – stripped of all narrative and dialogue tags - to show you, that with good dialogue, you can eliminate pages of needless exposition from your WIP.

It ended with a chair - my “office” chair, with my butt in it, and me – writing noticeably improved dialogue.

Want to read a script from your favourite TV show or film? Can’t find it to purchase? Try this fabu website: http://www.simplyscripts.com/

1k-a-day Day 3

The first 48 hours down. How do you all feel? It seems all of you have been rockin' the word counts! Congrats!

Now onto business! Day 3 may come as a shock to some of you. The weekend went great, but now comes the hard part. The part when our real lives take over and we have to balance work with writing. I know you can do it!

Tami's day 2 word count: 2,038
Overall word count: 27,760
Pieces of Halloween candy eaten: 4 (doubling day 1's candy count...not good)
Music: My Eels catalog as always when writing in Pence's POV
Mindset: Actually, today was a long, hard fought battle but LOVED it. I sat all day in front of the computer and didn't feel guilty taking a web-surfing break. It rained here in San Diego for the first time in I don't remember when. The greatest thing about day 2??? I FINISHED CHAPTER 10! I can't tell you how happy that makes me.
Tami's day 3 word count: 1,032

Okay Tracy! I'm throwing it to you...How did you manage on day 2?
Good luck to everyone on Day 3! Remember, squeeze in writing time when you can!

______

So it's day 3. Like Tami said - this is the real deal. Here comes...work, friends, making life sustaining meals, and walking two crazy Labrador retrievers so they don't get bored and eat another couch (I'm not even kidding). But we can do it. Because we're all freaking nutbar writers and we love it! :)

Tracy's day 2 WC: 1014
Overall WC: 2287
Halloween candy eaten: crap - nothing but Rockets left and Walmart changed over to Christmas stuff already - I hate that
Mindset: Really wishing we had a few more teeny tiny chocolate bars left in the candy bowl, but otherwise determined to meet today's challenge - chocolate or no.
Tracy's day 3 WC: 1206 words today!

Bring on the madness that is day 3!!! Go us!

1k-a-day Day 2

I hope you had a great first day of 1k-a-day. As for me, I didn't do as well as I had hoped, but still hit the goal.

Tami's day 1 word count: 1,030
Overall word count: 25,722
Pieces of Halloween candy eaten: 2
Music: My Eels catalog as always when writing in Pence's POV
Mindset: Pretty good. Again, didn't get a ton of words but happy with the quality of them.

Tami's day 2 word count: 2,038 - took me all day but feel accomplished!

Okay Tracy! Your turn! How did you do?
Good luck to everyone on Day 2! I'll be posting my Day 2 word count later on.

____

Okay, well - Day 1 wasn't all giggles for me either, but I managed to meet the goal.

Tracy's day 1 word count: 1267
Overall word count: 1267
Halloween Candy eaten: tooooooo many :)
Mindset: Other than being miffed I have to do extra time on my treadmill because of Halloween movie watching and candy eating....I'm keen to write today. Chapter 9 will be beaten into submission, yes it will.

Tracy's day 2 word count: 1014 - just made it!

Good luck to our 1k-a-day buddies!

1k-a day- Day 1

And we're off! Don't forget to post your starting word count in today's comment section. I look forward to writing with you and giving books away for the next 30 days! Good luck!

Below are my stats so far. I've basically added 30k words (1k a day for 30 days) to my word count to give me an end goal of 54,692.

Tami's work in progress: Lost and Found
Starting word count for 1k-a-day: 24 692

Words written today: 1,030 (Okay, not great but at least it was 1,000!)

_______


Tracy's contribution for Day 1

All righty, Tami - I'm ready to rumble with ya.

Since I'm spreading my writing for this challenge over two current WIPs, and an edit for Under My Skin, my goal is just to write at least 1k period - for whichever book takes my fancy - 1k for all three would be groovy - but I don't think it will happen often....if at all. :)

So my starting word count is easy.

It's a big fat zero.

Words written today: loggin in at 1267 for today! Whohoo!

Witches and Word Counts

Thanks to my husband for the great Halloween pic! Visit his site
to see more of his work.

Happy Halloween! For those of you who are going out tonight trick-or-treating or to a party, please have a safe and fun time!

On to the super exciting news! We will be holding a challenge and contest starting tomorrow, November 1^st here on YAedge!

Contest, you ask? Challenge? Do tell!

Here’s the deal. We’ve decided to hold a writing challenge for the month of November for all of the people who A) want to do NaNoWrimo but don’t think they can write 1,667 words a day, B) want to have a fun writing experience that doesn't take over their lives for a month or C) want to do NaNoWrimo, but are working on stories they’ve already started. According to NaNoWrimo rules, participants cannot work on stories started before November 1^st 12:00am.

So, we decided to hold our own! We’re calling it 1k-a-day. That’s right! 1,000 words a day, no more or less (well, unless you’re on a roll and would like to bump up the word count…more on that later). We'll be posting our word counts each day by 11:59pm PST and we’d like you to do the same. Just post your word count in the comments section of each day’s post.

Now, down to the super cool part…free books. That’s right…FREE BOOKS! We'll be giving away YA books from our own collections at the end of each week.

What do I do to win FREE books? Just post your starting word count in tomorrow’s blog post. It can be 0…it can be 40,000. We don't care. Whatever your word count is to start, we just need you to document it. From there, you can either post your word count daily, or by Friday evening. What is most important to us is your end word count each week.

For those of you who are unable to start November 1st, no problem! That is the beauty of 1k-a-day. We don't care about hitting an end of the month word count. It's all about your daily goal of 1,000 words!

This is where the overachievers come in. We will announce the winner who write the most words the previous week each Monday! We have a selection of books to choose from and will slowly “leak” the books up for grabs. How easy is that? Work on a book…win a book!

Make sure to check the blog each day for inspiration and read our ups and downs of the challenge. Plus, you never know when we will decide to give a book out on a whim!

So, get your thinking caps on, your writing notes out and dust off your keyboards. Oh yeah, don't forget the coffee! It’s time to get down to business and write 1K-a-day! All of us here at YAedge are in the heat of the moment with our current work-in-progress and don’t want to put them down! The excitement is brewing. Make sure you don't miss it!

Don’t forget to post your word counts everyone. Make sure to tell all your writer friends and family. The more the merrier. See you all tomorrow!

Quick note: For those of you participating in NaNoWrimo, you can also participate in 1k-a-day. Just use 0 as you starting word count and post your daily or weekly counts here.

Excuse My French

Location: Quebec City

Mood: Tres French

Last night's highlight: Drinking ale in a brick and mortar pub that was used for artillery storage in the 1700s.

This morning, the third day of a short visit to Quebec City, I wandered the streets around our hotel with a steaming vanilla latte in hand and my camera slung over my shoulder – feeling very French, very hip, very I Belong. I’m no longer the sole pedestrian staring expectantly at the lights, waiting in vain for the walking-dude to illuminate while others brush past me and forge into the streets, despite red lights and flashing hands, with no regard for their own safety.

Nope, I’m not that “newbie” tourist anymore. Like the Christmas lights on my parent’s house that stay up all year long - I now know streetlights are meaningless here. This is the way you cross a busy street in Quebec City…if the way looks clear, or you think you can outrun the oncoming vehicles and cross before being struck down like a dog – you’re good to go.

Anyway, a few close calls and a detour due to a film crew working on a Quebec movie (who may have been cursing me for wrecking their shot as I stopped to photograph them - can't you see the frustration on their faces?) – I’d found a neat bookstore to explore.

Librarie Pantoute has a rather large young adult fiction section, and while they didn’t have any English titles, they had a slew of French translations for some very familiar books. How cool to see the French covers with their slight variations in artwork and word choice for titles. The store staff were more than agreeable to me taking a few photos as long as I mentioned their website (I had told them, in my bastardized blend of French and English that I was an author and the photos were for my blog) – so here it is: http://www.librairiepantoute.com/.

An anthology (which a staff member at Pantoute informed me is titled “Prom Dates from Hell” in English), caught my eye. Twilight’s Stephanie Meyer, Meg Cabot – some big authors contribute to this dark collection of short stories. I spent a good half hour trying to read it, but my French just ain’t good enough. Also, the book (paperback format) cost $26.00.

Holy shit! Excuse my French, but I’ll wait and order the English version when I get back home. I’m thrilled these books are translated into different languages, but I pity the kids who have to pay those kinds of prices.

That they do says a lot about their love of reading.