1k-a-day Day 18

Tami's day 17 word count:
Tami's July word count:
Overall word count:
Cups of coffee drank:
Music:
Mindset:

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With Tami on vaycay, she may not get to log in her word counts everyday - so you're all stuck with me! ;)

Tracy's day 17 word count: LI: nadda, WS: 655
Tracy's July word count: 20 925
Overall word count: WS: 17 094
Cups of coffee drank: 0, it was Chai tea all the way
Music: Frustrated when I tried to work on Losing It and every idea seemed like crap, I went on a bit of an iTunes shopping spree. I got a few songs from The Frey, The Used, Modest Mouse. And in a vastly different genre, a song by the Abrams Brothers. I usually don't like covers, especially when the cover artist/band doesn't make the song their own and does a shoddy job of copying the original. But then I heard this version of Coldplay's Viva la Vida and, well, it's catchy and the guys are like 17:


Mindset: The last few chapters of Losing It are kicking my butt. Each ending I come up with seems contrived, fake and generally icky. Witch's Shadow was much more fun to work on, but I still didn't make it to 1k. Sigh. However, I took my dog to the beach, worked out, cleaned the house, watched a movie....meh, sometimes you gotta be happy with 655. ;)

How's the writing going for you guys?

1k-a-day Day 17

Tami's day 16 word count: 1,143
Tami's July word count:
Overall word count:
Cups of coffee drank: a latte at the airport
Music:
Mindset: wrote on plane listening to screaming kids

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Hey, Tami - you managed to get in your words - and plus some! Wow. ;)

Tracy's day 16 word count: LI: 1012 WS: nadda
Tracy's July word count: 21 282
Overall word count: LI: 40 884
Cups of coffee drank: Well, the one that stood out the most was the cup I had while getting my hair cut at the salon. The last time I lifted the cup to my mouth there were clipped strands of my hair floating on the surface from when the hairdresser blowdried my new do. Ick.
Music: I had a Feist day yesterday. When it first came out, I played her CD, The Reminder, until I was sick of it. Now I'm ready to love it again. ;) "Sealion" is amazing and I'd love to see her band play it live. "Brandy Alexander" is cool, too. Oh, and "I Feel It All" is fab (best line from it, the truth lies). I don't care if it came out in 2007 - just get the CD!
Mindset: I struggled to stay focused on writing yesterday. We put up some new shelves in my office (more books=more shelves). When re-organizing the piles of books on my desk for their new official wall-mounted home, I re-read/skim read through a few of my favourites and the day flew by in a blur of other writer's words.

Alright 1k-a-dayers, keep writing those stories that will someday happily distract a reader from getting to their to-do list!

1k-a-day Week 2 Winners!

We're ready to announce the winners of week 2!

The top word count for week 2 goes to: karinlibrarian with a whopping 13 870! Whoot!

AND, because you all were awesome, the second free book of the week goes to: Lori with 7221 for her week 2 count.

As a reminder, here are the great books to choose from this week.

• A Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass
• Golden by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
• The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong
• Undone by Brooke Taylor (hardback)
• You Know Where to Find Me by Rachel Cohn (hardback)
• Just Listen by Sarah Dessen (hardback)- I have to say, this is one of my fav. books. I just ended up with 2 hardback version for some reason. :)
• Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell (hardback)
• Eighth Grade Bites (Vlad Todd, Book 1) by Heather Brewer

If both of you could email us at: YAedge at yahoo.com (w/o the spaces and replace the at w/ @) with your name, address and your book choice, Tami will send out your prizes when she returns from vacation. If you both request the same book, it will go to first come, first serve.

Congrats! Remember, keep track of your word counts for week 3 to win free books! There will be books added to the list for the new week, so check back soon!

1k-a-day Day 16

Tami's day 15 word count: 545
Tami's July word count: 14,620
Overall word count:4,801 (I worked on my newer WIP Worst Days)
Cups of coffee drank: 2
Music: Jakob Dylan (love his solo album)
Mindset: Frazzled. I'm leaving to go out of town tomorrow and I had to get as many words in as I could. 545 isn't 1k, but it is something. Tonight I have to pack, do laundry and get the cats ready to be alone. Not fun, but I can't wait to be on vacation! Though I will be gone, I will be writing and hopefully updating my word count daily...even if I have to do it from my husband's iphone! We'll see what happens.


How'd it go today, Tracy? Thanks for showing us your plot board and taking care of the blog by yourself while I'm gone!!

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No worries, Tami. Have a fantastic vacation - but still write! ;)

Tracy's day 15 word count: LI: 909, WS: 165
Tracy's July word count: 20 270
Overall word count: LI now: 39 872, WS now: 16 439
Cups of coffee drank: 4 and none of them were great (I ran out of my toffee caramel creamer), so I went out for coffee around mid-day
Music: A friend of mine inspired me to wander back to my "heavy metal" days. Which is laughable, really. When I listen to those bands now, I'm like - I thought this was badass music? Damn, it's pop music! I'm talking Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Van Halen - I'm dating myself, eh? lol...
Mindset: Steadfast. This is it - I'm in the home stretch with Losing It and I'm riding an adrenaline rush. If only I could decide - do I kill the dog off - just have her injured....or does she run away, her fate unknown....hmmmm.....

Remember to save those documents. Do backups of backups. You're cranking out the numbers, we don't want to lose this stuff!

1k-a-day Day 15

Tami's day 14 word count: 1,007
Tami's week 2 word count: 7,557
Tami's July word count: 14,075
Overall word count: 3,988 (on Parlor)
Cups of coffee drank: 1 and a cup of hot chocolate :)
Music: I listened to IZ, a Hawaiian singer
Mindset: Today was tough again. I had a bit of work to do at my day job and when I got home all I wanted to do was rest and sleep. I only slept a few hours the night before and was seriously dragging. The bug bites on my feet are getting worse and it looks like I've earned a trip to the doctor tomorrow. :( These things always happen to me right before vacation.


How'd you fair, Tracy?

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Good luck with the feet, Tami. (I've got all those bug bite urban legends running through my mind...let us know if you're going to be a baby spider mommy...ewww...sorry, couldn't resist...lol..)

Tracy's day 14 word count: LI: 527, WS: nadda
Tracy's week 2 word count: LI: 3226, WS: 3126 - total: 6352
Tracy's July word count: 19 196
Overall word count: LI: 38 963
Cups of coffee drank: Zippo. I stuck with water and lemon wedges yesterday for some reason.

Music: I had a few horror movies playing in the background while I wrote - so maybe....screams? Ick. lol....
Mindset: Yesterday was a plotting day for me. I've worked my characters into a corner in Losing It and had to figure a way out for them. I ended up writing down key scenes I have left to write and shuffling the order until I found a path that is logical and yet quirky enough to be true to the characters and the story. Here's what I ended up with, an organized mess of ideas glued onto coloured paper and posted on the bulletin board that hangs beside my desk:

Does anyone else do this kind of visual organization when they're plotting? Or is it just me? :0 I've been very focused on Losing It, since it's so close to being done. I might have to put Witch's Shadow on hold for a bit.

Okay, guys - let's stun the word count gods today and write an insane amount!

1k-a-day Day 14

This is it! The last day of week 2. Hang in there folks. A lot of you have gone quiet. I hope you're still out there and remember to post your week 2 word counts by tomorrow, July 15. The top 2 word counts will get books again this week! Even if you've had some low word counts, at least enter, you never know! Don't forget, week two is from July 8 through today, July 14. All words written in that time will count.

Tami's day 13 word count: 0 ::sigh::
Tami's July word count: 13,068
Overall word count: 2,981 on Parlor
Cups of coffee drank: 1
Music: John Mayer
Mindset: Today was an odd day for me. I woke up with four...count them FOUR bug bites on my feet. Now, not your average bug bite, but 3 the size of dimes (on the same foot no less) and the other is on the top bone of my right foot and is HUGE. It is about the size of a golf ball. No joke. I had to wear those cheap $5 flip flops that I wear to the beach. You know those? So yeah, that's how my day STARTED and it went downhill from there. Without getting into more detail, that's why my word count sat at zero. I actually wrote a little but it wasn't worth counting (about 150 words). Tomorrow will be better because tomorrow is the start of WEEK 3!


Hope your day was better than mine, Tracy. How'd it go in your neck of the woods?

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Well, I didn't have any nasty bug bites. Yikes! But I did have a blast chatting with teens online via http://www.teenrc.ca/ a site devoted to keeping teens reading in the summer and talking up their favourite books, doing reviews, posting their own writing, etc. I was there as my pen name, Judith Graves. We discussed YA paranormal fiction, the merits (or de-merits) of Twilight on the genre, playing music, being in bands, poetry, songwriting, pets, horror movies - you name it. I loved it and hope to return again next summer and hopefully some of them will have read my book. ;)

Tracy's day 13 word count: LI: 652, WS: 274
Tracy's July word count: 18 669
Overall word count: LI now: 38 436, WS now: 16 274
Cups of coffee drank: Many.
Music:I had my "jogging" playlist on iTunes going for most of the day. It's a collection of faster tunes that charge me up when I'm on the treadmill. For some reason if I'm listening to fast music, I type faster. ;)
Mindset: Distracted. I wrote early in the day and was worrying my internet connection would die on me before the author chat (it had died the day before for a few hours of random stress). I didn't meet my goal, but I managed to stay focused long enough to get some ideas down and that's the main thing.

I did read a fantastic, heartstring-tugging book though: You, maybe by Rachel Vail. Wow - it totally reminded me why highschool crushes sucked the big one.

So, let's purge ourselves of those stories, 1k-a-day-ers! Get the words out, get them down - get writing!

1k-a-day Day 13

Don't stop now 1k-a-dayers! I know this is the tough part, but we're almost half way there. It feels like the month will never end and your butt might be feeling a little sore from sitting in the same chair every night. Don't forget why you work so hard, because writing is FUN and gets your creative juices flowing. It will all be worth it when you sit smiling in front of your computer on August first with 31,000+ words!

Tami's day 12 word count: 1,065
Tami's July word count: 13,068
Overall word count: 2,981 (on Parlor my old new WIP)
Cups of coffee drank: 1 and tons of juice and tea. It was warm today!
Music: Random Hawaiian music and Django Reinhardt (if you love gypsy jazz, he's a must)
Mindset: Today was torture. Not so much for writing (though that was tough too) but we cleaned the house from top to bottom in preparation of our vacation this week. After that it was errands. NOT a fun day, but I did get time to relax and finish a great book; Twenty Boy Summer. If you haven't read it yet, it's great! Anyway, so I was able to write outside and decided to put my new, new WIP aside for the day and work on Parlor. The two stories are SOOO different and I needed a change of scenery. It was great to get back to something fun and fanciful.


How'd your writing go, Tracy? Were you able to get through the emotion scene in Losing It?

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I always clean our house before we leave on a trip as well. I tell myself I do it because it's so nice to come home to neat and tidy, instead of oh....I still have laundry to do. But really, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking - if our plane goes down and someone has to weed through my stuff, I want the house to be in good shape. How morbid is that, eh? lol...this is similar to the "leave the house in your best underwear" superstition, I guess.

Tracy's day 12 word count: LI: 613 - nadda for Witch's Shadow
Tracy's July word count: 17 743
Overall word count: 37 784
Cups of coffee drank: A few chai teas yesterday
Music: Jack Johnson: In Between Dreams - I ADORE that CD.
Mindset: I was more than a bit frustrated with that emotional scene in Losing It - focused on it all day and re-wrote it several times. But I think I got the scene under control - I'll still have to go back and flesh it out, but at least it's not melodramatic anymore. After that, I had to take a mental break from writing and didn't get to Witch's Shadow at all.

Alrighty, so it's been a bit quiet from our fellow 1k-a-day-ers, hope your hanging in there!

Free Books Available for Week 2!

Okay everyone...just in time for the close of week 2! Below is the list of available books for this week. Good luck everyone, and don't forget to post those week ending word counts by Wednesday, July 15!

Week 2 word counts should be the words written between Wednesday, July 8 and Tuesday, July 14.

• A Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass
• Golden by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
• The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong
• Undone by Brooke Taylor (hardback)
• You Know Where to Find Me by Rachel Cohn (hardback)
• Just Listen by Sarah Dessen (hardback)- I have to say, this is one of my fav. books. I just ended up with 2 hardback version for some reason. :)
• Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell (hardback)
  
• Eighth Grade Bites (Vlad Todd, Book 1) by Heather Brewer
  

1k-a-day Day 12

Hope everyone had a great and relaxing Saturday!

Tami's day 11 word count: 1,091
Tami's July word count: 12,003
Overall word count: 5,347
Cups of coffee drank: 1 amazing cup of Hawaiian roasted coconut coffee
Music: no music
Mindset: Today was an interesting day. I got up and knew that I wanted to get my writing done quickly. As I struggled through, I noticed that a few writers were going to do a word blitz/word wars, so I joined along. I was able to write my word count in as little as 20 minutes. Word blitz/wars are amazing!

How'd you manage, Tracy? I hope you had a great Saturday!

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In 20 minutes, Tami?! Okay - maybe we should do a scheduled YAedge blitz this week. Like maybe Wednesday?

Tracy's day 11 word count: LI: 724, WS: 563
Tracy's July word count: 17 130
Overall word count: LI now: 37 171, WS now: 16 000
Cups of coffee drank: 1 pot of Timmy's coffee (I love that we can buy it in cans, but it's still way better at Tim Horton's...lol...)
Music: One of my characters in Losing It falls for a guy in a Christian rock band (but he's kind of a man whore...lol...). Anyway, I ended up listening to the CDs I recorded with my old bands and when I was done writing for the day - I hung out in my music room playing every instrument I own and going through my roster of tunes. Gotta do an open mic next time I'm in the city.
Mindset: Feeling the 1k-a-day burn now. I didn't quite make my goal word count yesterday and when the sun is shining outside, it's hard to keep my ass in the chair and write. But the rewards of 1k are starting to show - we've all got some amazing totals happening. We rock! Tonight's major challenge is going to be getting my writing done before Trueblood and Entourage.

Keep plugging away at those stories - they won't get told without you!