2017 My Year In Fic

2017 My Year in Fic

2017 Fiction Word Count

Progress Bar from Writertopia

• January: I spent mostly on the Star Wars: My Home is You with a sprinkle Zy's Universe at the end of the month. All I did with Zy's Universe in 2017 was moving the background material I'd corralled in TiddlyWiki into Scrivener, and I don't think I finished that job.
• February: Writing Star Wars: My Home is You and Zyverse moving.
• March: Writing Star Wars: My Home is You and Zyverse moving. Writing Rescue the Farmboy AU on a few days at the end of the month.
• April: Dropped working on Zyverse for the rest of the year, so it ended up being all Star Wars: My Home is You with two days of Rescue the Farmboy AU.
• May: Star Wars: My Home is You and 1 day of Rescue the Farmboy AU
• June: only Star Wars: My Home is You
• July: had a few blank days but I also started my dental implants process, so we'll just assume my jaw hurt too much to write. I did finish Star Wars: My Home is You first draft and started editing.
• August: Editing Star Wars: My Home is You and at the end of August I got started on putting my website, the BookWorm's Library, back online.
• September: Editing Star Wars: My Home is You and the Library.
• October: I started tracking how much time I was spending on the different projects by using the fifteen minutes on each task and writing down the time on my calendar. I found more time this month to write Rescue the Farmboy AU while I was still editing Star Wars: My Home is You. The BookWorm's Library went live, so my continuing Library editing focused on recreating the Reference Wiki. Also during this month, I read Chris Fox's book 5,000 Words Per Hour. He uses micro-sprints to add up to 5,000 words per hour. So I put the fifteen minutes I was doing into the micro-sprint idea.
• November: I started using Chris Fox's spreadsheet to track my progress in micro-sprints and across projects. His idea is you have to know what you are writing before you can increase it. At this point, I'm still tracking and haven't put much effort into increasing my word count. Progress on writing Rescue the Farmboy AU and Tumblr posts, editing Reference Wiki and Star Wars: My Home is You.
• December: Writing Rescue the Farmboy AU, Reference Wiki, and Tumblr posts. Editing Star Wars: My Home is You and started posting it in AO3 on 15th.

*Snort* I don't think I like the breaking month-by-month format, so I doubt I'll use it next year. But hey, I did not burn out and skip a whole month of writing! This is solid progress. I'm much stronger on tracking what I'm doing, but I'm putting way too much on my daily plate.

Stories I Finished:

Star Wars: My Home Is You still needs some beta-reading at the end, but it's finished enough to post for people to read.

Stories I Didn't Finish:

Zyverse: I need to finish the moving it into Scrivener, so I can edit what I already have written and move into new stories in that universe.

Rescue the Farmboy AU: I found the movie script online for A New Hope so I no longer had to depend on me transcribing the YouTube snippets! Writing is moving so much faster now on that, but I do think I will have to rewatch during an editing pass so I can describe the sets.

Never touched Strix: Forget the Sun for the whole year.

My favorite story this year: Star Wars: My Home is You

Story most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Strix: Forget the Sun because I keep forgetting to write it!

Most fun story: Rescue the Farmboy. Luke and Biggs go to the Imperial Academy, and Luke ends up with both Vader and the Emperor wanting him alive and dead respectively. They hitch a ride back to Tatooine with the Senator of Alderaan, but Vader ends up with Luke despite their best efforts.

Stories I wrote that I never thought I'd write: Still Star Wars fanfic. After an awful fix-it fic I wrote back in high school when Kevin J. Anderson ruined Yavin 4 and a missed chance to write for the Star Wars Adventure Journal, I figured I was content to just read, watch, and cosplay. Episode VII awakened more than just the Force.

And I reread that filed high school fix-it fic, it is awful. The only believable part is the petulant teenager because I was a petulant teenager writing it.

And now I feel Disney-Lucasfilm ruined the sequel trilogy they started. I have no idea how this petulance will come out.

Hardest story to write: Strix: Forget the Sun because I keep setting it aside.

Biggest disappointment: That I forgot about Zy's Universe. Again.

Biggest surprise: Micro-sprints and tracking them! I've been doing micro-sprints my whole writing life, but tracking them is the secret of keeping myself focused on the writing task at hand and how I can tell my defective brain that yes, I have accomplished this much today.

What's your favorite piece of dialogue you wrote this year? From Rescue the Farmboy's version of A New Hope (I haven't decided if I should keep the movie titles or not):

     Telepathy works easiest between Force users and Force sensitives. It takes effort and concentration, but less effort than if you’re trying to send something to someone who isn’t a Force user. Form the words you want to say, speak out loud if that helps, and push the words into the connection between us.
     His eyes were already closed, but he squeezed his eyelids tighter. “Hi I’m sorry.” Then he shoved the words and just his words into the connection that still looked like a wire.
     He felt the words hit her like a blow and a headache began. Her mental voice shook a bit when she responded. Not so much effort. Kriff, you’re powerful.

What's your favorite piece of description or narration you wrote this year? From Rescue the Farmboy AU:

Nothing distracting was happening, kest! Damn the Empire! Her hands curled and her fingernails dug into her palms. She thought she had hated the Empire before with its brutality against non-humans and its rigid tyranny against democracy and its subjugation of any protest with callous military might. Now pain lanced her palms but that didn’t halt the shaking vibrating her arms. This was hate, a hot fire under her skin, wanting to seize the Emperor in his black robe and set him alight with it. Her ears under her hair buns were already aflame.
     “Leia,” General Kenobi said.
     She twisted to stare at him, not that she could see in the dark. But why take the chance of giving away their hiding place? The entry ramp was extending down with a hiss of hydraulics.
     We do not need voices, Padawan. General Kenobi’s voice in her head was amused by her confusion, but soon it turned grave. Do not let hatred dwell inside you, Leia. Hate leads to suffering.
     She couldn’t articulate her feelings into words as the boots marched over their heads. That sound and the idea of the Empire just elicited an inner howl of grief that pierced like the hunting cry of a stalking bird now extinct with the rest of Alderaan. The vortex was numbing the fire, but felt like it was pulling her down into the never-ending cold.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would, less, or about what you predicted? I reached about 47% of my goal, which is ended up being more words than I wrote last year, but it only turned out to be 282 words per day.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? Tracking is so useful for shutting up my brain that keeps swearing I never do enough of everything (writing, chores, etc.). I feel good that I'm not wasting my free time at the paying job, but I need to transfer it to the weekends and holidays.

Did you meet last year's goals?

That's a no, and boy, how is it a no.

• Reach 130,000 words in the stories in Zy's Universe.
  • Edit Stellar Gift of Death to a draft ready for beta reading -- didn't start
  • Edit "Words of Parting" according to the feedback I got -- didn't start
  • Edit "Blue Man on the Porch" to a draft ready for beta reading -- disn't start
  • Write a short story on Xeryl's background -- didn't start
  • Write the Ail 12 on vacation case that ended in a shootout (new take on the "Case of the Hideous Medallion") -- didn't start
  • Plot two sequels to Stellar Gift of Death -- didn't start
  • Begin writing the next novel in the series -- didn't start
  • Move story projects into Scrivener -- started, didn't finish
  • Pay for more Dropbox storage
  -- Done
• Finish rough draft of Strix: Forget the Sun
  • Move what is already done into Scrivener -- didn't start
  • Finish rough draft according to beat sheet -- didn't start
• Finish rough drafts of Star Wars AUs
  • Write Star Wars: My Home Is You (Dark Empire AU) -- FINISHED, posting now
  • Write Star Wars: Rescue the Farmboy (Original Trilogy AU) -- continuing to write this one
• Post regularly to Intentionally Left Blank -- I didn't keep up with this.
• Redevelop FanFiction Garret -- This remains lowest on the list of priorities here. -- Never worked on this.
• Set up a professional website -- This is in the research stage. -- Never researched this.
• BookWorm's Library maintenance -- Had to reinstall the entire site from my backups this year.
• Add the Part of the Night series to FF.net -- Finished
• Add more fanfics to AO3 -- Never started.
• Work on home concentration. -- Namely I need one day of the weekend with a solid chunk of writing in it. I'm thinking of trying a day off a week to forestall my taking a whole month off instead around May. Results: I didn't work every day, but I didn't set an official day off. So with tracking, I didn't lose a month of productivity.

My daily writing plans to help the above list of goals get done:

• Write 600 daily words. Can be split among the projects. -- After much trial and tribulation, I finally got the formula correct on my Excel spreadsheet to count when I made my daily word count goal. (It is so saved on the template now.) I had 58 days of meeting or exceeding 600 words a day.
• Schedule a day off during the week; maybe why I fade out by May is because I don't. -- I didn't schedule days, but with tracking I kept a better focus on what I was doing all year. I missed some days writing, but never a whole month.
• Spend 45/15 after I get home editing Stellar by Ali Luke's Two-Year-Novel Plan. -- This did not happen. I'm really sure it won't with my schedule the way it it.
• Work in meditation time with Brain FM. -- Didn't try this at all.
• Do more chores in the morning so I have evening time for writing. -- More chores in the morning is just a good idea all the way around.
• Reward myself when goals are reached. -- 2017 was a bad year for reaching all my goals.

Do you have any goals for the coming year? The goals from my 2018 one-page business plan are:

• Reach 130,000 words in the stories in Zy's Universe.
  • Edit Stellar Gift of Death to a draft ready for beta reading. Use Ali Luke's Two-Year-Novel Plan.
  • Edit "Words of Parting" according to the feedback I got
  • Edit "Blue Man on the Porch" to a draft ready for beta reading
  • Write a short story on Xeryl's background
  • Write the Ail 12 on vacation case that ended in a shootout (new take on the "Case of the Hideous Medallion")
  • Plot two sequels to Stellar Gift of Death
  • Begin writing the next novel in the series
  • Finish putting story projects into Scrivener
• Finish rough draft of Strix: Forget the Sun
  • Move what is already done into Scrivener
  • Finish rough draft according to beat sheet
• Finish rough drafts of Star Wars AUs
  • Write Star Wars: Rescue the Farmboy (Original Trilogy AU)
  • Write Lucinda's story
• Post regularly to Intentionally Left Blank
• BookWorm's Library maintenance
• Add Media Center to BookWorm's Library
• Post to Tumblr
• Add more fanfics to AO3
• Work on home concentration. -- I want a day of nothing but writing on the weekends unless I have other plans.

My daily writing plans to help the above list of goals get done:

• Write 600 daily words. Can be split among the projects.
• Work in meditation time with Brain FM.
• Do more chores in the morning so I have evening time for writing.
• Reward myself when goals are reached.

Here's to 2018. We'll get through it together.

2017 Resolutions

How best to sum up 2016?

It will be a while before this image gets old.

Since I fell off the keep people informed of what’s going on in my life goal, I’m going to go through 2016 in personal events for an overview to figure out my 2017 resolutions and plans.

Back Bedroom Remodel:

Started in December 2015 after my new roof was installed. I figured it would be finished in a few months. Now it’s January 2017 and I still don’t have a back bedroom or a living room. 2017 Plans: Finish this project.

March 2016 Flood:

This event has been overshadowed by the August flooding. Personally, I found my back porch still leaked with the new roof and raked out the ditch in front of my house to help the drainage, which was then attributed to the hard workers who maintain our parish roads. (Thanks, Mom.)

Mustard’s eye:

In May, Mustard’s eye got scratched and then infected. There was only a thin bit of membrane holding it together by the time I got him to the veterinary ophthalmologist, but he saved his eye. By the end of June, the cone was off and his eye is fine.

Front and Back Porches Refresh:

So this spring I discovered the carpenter bees drilling nests into my new back porch rafters. They had also drilled into my front porch ceiling and rafters. I got the back porch rafters painted by May 30th, but painting the front porch got delayed due to summer monsoons and smaller projects to make the spaces pretty and functional multiplied every weekend. In October, it finally dried enough for me to finish the major painting (front porch ceiling and the columns on both porches). Poisoned the carpenter bees and then spray foamed the holes. Finished trimming the spray foam snot and painted over that in November. Then I moved onto refinishing rocking chairs. 2017 Plans: Finish this project.

August 2016 Flood:

I watched the waters rise and finished insulating the back bedroom. Luckily, my family and I were not affected. However, my mother’s friend Irene was flooded and was then put on hospice. My parents took her in and we rallied to work on her house in spurts.

Irene’s House:

We cleaned everything in the house, but not before Irene died on November 19th. The clean-out officially ended December 4th when All Hands Volunteers showed up and gutted the house. 2017 Plans: I’ll be roped into dealing with the contents of the out buildings, but I don’t forsee having to take off work again.

Money Annoyances:

So Mustard’s eyes surgery and two unexpected car issues pretty much tapped out my savings and left me in debt to my father (buying building supplies didn’t help either). So this weekend found me very disconcerted about my finances. The money I earn means I shouldn’t be in a mad, penny-pinching scramble every payday. The next step will be to analyze my spending habits to see where I can cut back. 2017 Plans: Stick to my budget, pay off my debts, reward myself when goals are met.

Basically my 2017 plans are to finish the outstanding projects I have started. Of course once I wrap something, a new project will take its place. For example, when I move the back bedroom stuff into the finished back bedroom, I have a new TV to mount on my wall and must replace the entertainment center to do that. By the end of the month, we’ll see how much progress I’ve made on them.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

2016 My Year In Fic

2016 My Year in Fic

2016 Fiction Word Count

Progress Bar from Writertopia

This year was a dumpster fire. I had started and put aside a blog post titled "What the Hell Did We Do to You, 2016?" and just awful stuff kept happening after that point, so I never finished writing it--much less posting it. So the less said about it, the better.

So I did maintain a writing tracking calendar all year. That is a positive. It took me until March to realize that I needed to add what project the words were generated for. *Wince* I took the entire month of May off and have no idea why or how that happened. June started the Star Wars focus that has lasted all the way into 2017. I didn't finish anything on my business plan, but I improved my tracking. But I did discover an addition mistake back in January that threw off my total of words written for the year, so next year I need to check my spreadsheet on a monthly basis.

Stories I Finished:

I didn't finish ANYTHING! I didn't even post Part of the Night: The One Rule or Part of the Night: The Wayne Legacy at FanFiction.Net like I said I would. FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR!

Stories I Didn't Finish:

I'm still stuck on that I wrote a novel's worth of words and didn't finish anything between four stories and their outlines.

Okay, I finished the outline beat sheets, but people can't read those. Strix: Forget the Sun's writing bit lasted from January through February. March and April were spent editing Zy's Universe only to be dropped along with everything writing related in May.

Why did all writing stop in May? Was it painting the porches? Mustard's eye surgery? Alas, I can't find any notes I left myself about it.

June saw my writing resume with handwritten pages of the Star Wars AU I had plotted out in January: a rewrite of the original trilogy I've given the series title Rescue the Farmboy. These rough draft pages were slow going because of rewatching movie scenes. Paying job cut off access to YouTube where I was watching the scenes and progress halted as soon as I got the Falcon to the Death Star.

September gave me a writing challenge from Tomi Adeyemi to write 600 words a day for two weeks. Instead of working on Strix: Forget the Sun or Rescue the Farmboy, I wrote the beat sheet for another Star Wars project, a rewrite of the Dark Empire storyline. By the time I finished it and beat the challenge, I was writing the narrative. I've been working on it and typing up Rescue the Farmboy into Scrivener. I had to rewrite Rescue the Farmboy beat sheet from Bespin through Endor, but I haven't touched that narrative since.

My favorite story this year: I'm torn between my Star Wars fanfics, but both of them have the same reason: Luke Skywalker is just as big a smart ass as Han Solo and it's been fun giving him dialogue that reflects that. The EU Legends got far too caught up in solemn Jedi Knight.

Story most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Strix: Forget the Sun because I keep forgetting to write it!

Most fun story: Rescue the Farmboy. Luke and Biggs go to the Imperial Academy, and Luke ends up with both Vader and the Emperor wanting him alive and dead respectively. They hitch a ride back to Tatooine with the Senator of Alderaan, but Vader ends up with Luke despite their best efforts. The Emperor's Hand also fails to kill Luke thanks to a pillow. I need to get back on this story.

Stories I wrote that I never thought I'd write: Star Wars fanfic. After an awful fix-it fic I wrote back in high school when Kevin J. Anderson ruined Yavin 4 and a missed chance to write for the Star Wars Adventure Journal, I figured I was content to just read, watch, and cosplay. Episode VII awakened more than just the Force.

And I reread that filed high school fix-it fic, it is awful. The only believable part is the petulant teenager because I was a petulant teenager writing it.

Hardest story to write: Strix: Forget the Sun because I keep setting it aside.

Biggest disappointment: That I forgot about Zy's Universe. Again.

Biggest surprise: Scrivener! I've heard raves about it for years, but always mentally filed it away as a program I couldn't afford to buy. Microsoft Word's custom dictionary broke on me and they wanted to sell a subscription for updated Office programs. Nope. Polaris works on my smartphone and desktop, but I have to spend money to add it to the laptop. Nope. Scrivener was cheaper and its license is good on multiple devices. So in September I began giving it an honest trial and now I'm hooked.

What's your favorite piece of dialogue you wrote this year? This was a hard choice. From Rescue the Farmboy's version of A New Hope (I haven't decided if I should keep the movie titles or not):

     "The Academy locked me up and then stormtroopers came after me." Luke snapped his mouth shut. His indignation over the treatment blazed in the Force.
     "And you turned to the Senator of Alderaan for assistance."
     "She wasn’t appointed by the Hutts."

I hope you're all quivering in anticipation for Vader's response to that declaration.

What's your favorite piece of description or narration you wrote this year? Easier choice. From Star Wars: My Home Is You:

     Luke smiled as he followed Tarask to the second door on the left. And the smile strangled on his face as soon as he entered the room. A floor-to-ceiling mural of Tatooine covered the wall shared with the office showing Beggar’s Canyon and the Stone Needle with a glimpse of the desert plains and Tatoo I and II shining in the bright blue sky. And underneath them positioned in the center of the wall was a baby bed with high-slated sides to keep the infant safe inside and a mobile of starfighters dangling over it.
     They were all wrong, all the theories were wrong. His father bought the building and closed off this apartment because it was HERS. It was his mother’s. The Force sang out the truth and it sounded like a sandstorm howling in his ears. This was their secret home and this room they had prepared for their baby.

One of the many tragedies of Revenge of the Sith is we never get to see Padmé making this nursery.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would, less, or about what you predicted? I reached about 74% of my goal which is better than what I managed in 2015. Too bad none of the words added up to one completed novel.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? I participated in the writing challenge and learned I can fit 600 words a day into my schedule. Also I got better at carving writing time out of my free time at the paying job. However, I found myself less able to concentrate on writing at home. It's not a case of having used up all my willpower/creative juice at work, because it happens during the weekends and my vacation time.

Did you meet last year's goals?

That's a no, and boy, how is it a no.

• Reach 130,000 words in the stories in Zy's Universe. -- I touched Zy's universe back in February, but I have no idea what I did and it wasn't enough to knock any of these to-do's off the list. I might as well say I never touched any of this.
• Finish rough draft of Strix: Forget the Sun -- Still not finished.
• Establish a dedicated writing hour -- I'm declaring this a win. While it's not a truly dedicated time frame, I'm spending 45 minute chunks on the laptop during the day twice a day and sometimes three times a day.
• Post 12 updates on Facebook. -- Nope, I'm accepting the fact that I hate the damn thing and save the posts for the next time I have to tell people I survived the next natural disaster.
• Post regularly to Intentionally Left Blank -- This fell to the wayside too. Will try to do better next year.
• Redevelop FanFiction Garret -- Didn't work on at all.

Do you have any goals for the coming year? The goals from my 2017 one-page business plan are:

• Reach 130,000 words in the stories in Zy's Universe.
  • Edit Stellar Gift of Death to a draft ready for beta reading
  • Edit "Words of Parting" according to the feedback I got
  • Edit "Blue Man on the Porch" to a draft ready for beta reading
  • Write a short story on Xeryl's background
  • Write the Ail 12 on vacation case that ended in a shootout (new take on the "Case of the Hideous Medallion")
  • Plot two sequels to Stellar Gift of Death
  • Begin writing the next novel in the series
  • Move story projects into Scrivener
  • Pay for more Dropbox storage
  -- Already started doing this.
• Finish rough draft of Strix: Forget the Sun
  • Move what is already done into Scrivener
  • Finish rough draft according to beat sheet
• Finish rough drafts of Star Wars AUs
  • Write Star Wars: My Home Is You (Dark Empire AU)
  • Write Star Wars: Rescue the Farmboy (Original Trilogy AU)
• Post regularly to Intentionally Left Blank
• Redevelop FanFiction Garret -- This remains lowest on the list of priorities here.
• Set up a professional website -- This is in the research stage.
• BookWorm's Library maintenance
• Add the Part of the Night series to FF.net
• Add more fanfics to AO3
• Work on home concentration. -- Namely I need one day of the weekend with a solid chunk of writing in it. I'm thinking of trying a day off a week to forestall my taking a whole month off instead around May.

My daily writing plans to help the above list of goals get done:

• Write 600 daily words. Can be split among the projects.
• Schedule a day off during the week; maybe why I fade out by May is because I don't.
• Spend 45/15 after I get home editing Stellar by Ali Luke's Two-Year-Novel Plan.
• Work in meditation time with Brain FM.
• Do more chores in the morning so I have evening time for writing.
• Reward myself when goals are reached.

Here's to 2017. We'll get through it together.

Read Free!
The BookWorm