Tag Archives: 5000

Morning Pages Entry – May 26, 2014

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Wheh!, that was a busy weekend. Sam and I managed to get the front window out and completely resealed. That was kind of nice, getting that thing done. Here’s to hoping that it worked. I’m not sure I got enough sealant down in the initial pass, and I’m not sure, that the screws were enough to hold it down, given that some of them (2) were stripped. But, hopefully, it till be enough. But, I suppose we will see. I did leave, a couple bags of top soil on the window, to give it a bit more weight, so hopefully, that will be enough. Time will tell. I suppose, I could have gotten slightly bigger screws for the two that were stripped, but it’s too late now. That would have been the smarter thing. Maybe, tomorrow I’ll run up, and run the hose on them to see if it worked. Would be good to know for sure. So, today, I would really like to have the last 5K words or so of the novel finished with my editing pass. I really need to get it done, and come up with a good way of breaking the novel out into two novels. Something that makes sense. I haven’t really done that yet. Then, I should go back, and perhaps add more conflict and/or drama to some of the scenes. The beginning, I think is a bit choppy, and could use some editing to make it flow a bit better. A result of my over zealous first editing attempts. I think I got too much sun over the weekend working on the boat. I woke up with a nasty headache at 3:40 last night, and had to take a couple of tylenols. I never get headaches. The other big thing going on this week, is I need to plan out the Whole30. Now that the window is out of the way (hopefuly), I can get to work on planning that. Although, I do need to rethread the fastner on the window over the galley in the boat. That would be a good idea. Can’t remember, if I bought a re-threading kit or not. Should check on that. Then, I probably need to order a new seal for the very front hatch of the boat. And if they all work, then super coolness, you may actually have a boat full of windows that are water tight. How cool would that be. I’d say pretty cool. That would be, about the time to sell the damn thing I suppose. Of course, once you start making six figures a year in book sales, that shouldn’t be a problem. This should be a really interesting year. A really interesting summer actually. Once you get the first three or four out there, that is. Just get them out there, and keep putting them out there. That’s the key. So many are doing exactly that, and you need to join the party. No more screwing around. Time to go. And, yes, I do also have to go to the dentist this morning, and get a cavity worked on. That shouldn’t take too long or be too painful hopefully. Just go and get it done. Then, it’s off to editing, and planning the whole30. You need to start putting together a shopping list. Maybe, in that spreadsheet you started. If I could make a bunch of runs to the grocery store for the really paleo stuff that would be good. At least a good start. Work on the menus, and work on stocking up the cupboards. Maybe, make on of the recipes to get us going. That wouldn’t be so bad. You would at least benefit from it. Maybe the book I ordered will show up today. That might be helpful. Not, that you’ve actually read the Paleo for Athletes book. You should definitely read the rest of that. I really need to do more reading in general. That’s something I’ve really been sucking at. I keep choosing to do other things, like play stupid games instead of reading. Maybe, you should force yourself to do it for the next 30 days, along side the whole30. If you can do it everyday for 30 days, at least 30 mintues, but more like 60 minutes, then maybe it would become a real habit. 60 minutes of reading every day. You have the time for it, just stop doing other stupid stuff, like watching endless vapid videos, or spending too much time on Facebook. That thing truly is a time sink.

TIGERBLOOD: yep DAILYMOOD: good LOCATION: home office WORDSWRITTEN: none PUSHUPS: none TODO: dentist, editing, reading, writing, whole30 planning TV: Where The Millers BOOK: none GAME: none EXERCISE: worked on boat WEIGHT: 170 BREAKFAST: bacon & eggs LUNCH: big ass salad DINNER: none SNACKS: orange, grapes, apple ALCOHOL: none BEDTIME: 12:00 AWAKE: 6:30

 

Morning Pages Entry – April 28, 2014

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It’s monday morning, and only 3 days left in April. Time to get into gear. I should have some new big goal set at the beginning of each month. Like, I should have this book published, and the next book published, before the end of May (next month). That would be pretty cool to actually publish two books in one month. Even though the first one has taken me forever to write, it’s pretty close to getting there, and if I could just finish it of, and get back to doing my 5K per day writing thing, then I could get the next one started. That would be pretty cool. It’s pretty ambitious, but also pretty cool. Something to think about. It would be a great way to kick off your summer. Then, by the time the second one is out there, you’d be working on the third. I could have a 5 book series up on amazon, by the time the girls go back to school. That would have to be making some money at least. Especially, if they were coming out that quickly, and you started doing FaceBook ads the way some of the kindling readers are doing them. I should, start looking for facebook ads out there. See if I can see what other writers are doing. I’m sure it wouldn’t be that hard to find. Go to a few zombie pages, and see what’s going on. There is the one group that I follow. They may even be willing to take ads on their page directly. It seemed like a pretty big page. Although, you’ll have to give some thought, as to what type of page, your reader likely hangs out at. It would take lots of testing for sure. Could be the zombie page, or it could be other authors pages. You may have to buy that scraper software, the picks up UIDs from each page. I wonder, how hard that would be to write. That could be something interesting you could do your self. Even if you did it manually. It’s probably, not that hard really. You’ve written scraper stuff before. I’m sure, you could do it again. A little PHP coding project, could be an interesting change of pace. Although, those ones are desktop applications that have been recommended. I could likely, make one and sell it to others, as a service. Maybe, offer it free to kindling members, and see if the word gets out there for other people to use it. That might be another income stream as a service for authors. Not a bad idea, as long as your not spreading yourself too thin with this stuff. Even if you could get it to be making 1000 bucks per month, that would be alright. Of course, if you could get your books to be making 10K per month, then why would I even bother about something like that. Yesterday, was a bit of a tiring day. I was supposed to sleep in till 8 or 8:30, but Sam woke me up, to take her to work a few hours earlier. Not cool. I was pretty bagged for the rest of the day. That girl really needs to get her license. I certainly hope she gets it the next time. I would really like to be relieved from all this driving around stuff. It’s getting old fast. It would be nice, not to be driving all around the city with this swimming crap. Even though, I no longer have to do early mornings, I’m still looking forward to getting out of that business entirely. No more swimming for me. Thank you very much. I sure, hope, it doesn’t screw me up in terms of going to work from the boat this summer. But, I suspect, it will mess me up for a few weeks beyond school ending. Unless, we just leave a car at home and I manage without a car at the boat for the first few weeks of june. That could be an inconvenience, but it would be better, then losing time at the boat I suppose. I really need, to find some more interesting things to write about with my morning journals these days. It’s becoming a bit of a struggle to keep these things up. Although, it looks like if I can just get through the next few sentences, then I will hit my total for at least another day, and be able to stop writing till tomorrow.

TIGERBLOOD: not really, too tired DAILYMOOD: tired LOCATION: living room WORDSWRITTEN: none PUSHUPS: none TODO: editing TV: sons of anarchy, wolves of Chernobyl documentary BOOK: none GAME: Mickey Mouse Illusion Castle EXERCISE: none WEIGHT: 171 BREAKFAST: bacon & eggs LUNCH: big ass salad DINNER: roast pork SNACKS: orange, grapes ALCOHOL: none BEDTIME: 10:15 & 1:30 AWAKE: 6:30

 

Morning Pages Entry – April 19, 2014

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I’m having one of those mornings, where I’m really not sure what I want to write about. It happens. So, I’m just going to make up stuff as I go along here. Something I’ve noticed lately, is that I’ve gotten into a much better work habit these days regarding my writing. And I think it’s been a few weeks that I’ve been doing it. It started a couple of weeks ago, with the week, that I did 5000 words a day every day from mon-fri and ended up with over 25000 words for the week. This past week, I didn’t write any new words, but instead have been editing every day of the week. Which has still been good, in that I’ve been following the same habit of working consistently at the editing. So, that’s a very good thing. I think, the thing I need to do, is be persistent with the work. I need to do it for at least 30 days, to make sure it remains a new habit. It’s all happened upstairs, working from the front living room, which is a different thing. Maybe, getting out of the basement office and experiencing a change of scenery helped with that process. I’m not sure, but it seems to be working. Although, I’m not so sure that working upstairs is a totally good thing. I do seem to be sitting down a lot more when I’m working, and the last few days, my back has been a bit sore. I’m not taking advantage of my stand up desk as much. I need I think to do more standing up somehow. I should give some more thought, as to how to stand up and work with the laptop. Standing up once in a while is a good thing for my back I believe. Sitting down all day long, is definitely not the best. Will have to give some thought to that. Maybe, even incorporate it somehow, into working from the boat this year. How would I stand up, and work from the boat? That could be really tricky. Other then, just work in the mornings, I’m not quite sure how to resolve that. We’ll think about it some. Maybe do some Googling around about it. I also think, I need to come up with some ways to write more descriptive prose throughout my novel. I have definitely been writing a very vanilla type story style I feel. Focused, mostly on the series of events as they unfold. Not so much getting into the environment, and feelings of the characters. Perhaps, I haven’t been incorporating the ‘sequel’ after the ‘conflict’ based scenes enough. That I think, would help much more with the character development. Now the environment type stuff, is another thing altogether. Also, I need quit beings so wordy, and non-committal in my draft writing. I need to be more suscinct and sure of myself in my writing. If something is so, then say it. Make it definite. Not ‘maybe’, or ‘a bit’, or ‘perhaps’. It’s those kinds of words that I need to lose. I need to take some sort of writing course, where I have a bunch of little exercises to do, that get me writing more in those styles. Confident, and descriptive, and insightful with my characters. Those three things will make my stories come more alive. I do already have some interesting ideas, I just need to express them with a little more color. Not just be so factual plot driven. I’ll do a bit of looking around, and see if I can find some good creative writing courses online perhaps, that I can take. There have to be some. Finding info for writers is pretty easy online. Next to technology stuff, writing resources seem to be the most plentiful resource online. There’s all kinds of helpful tips to be found. Will take a look after I’m done here. This has been a bit of a struggle this morning, getting enough words onto the page here. I kind of take that as a good thing. It means, that I don’t need as much therapy as usual. That things are going more the way I want them to. Certainly, since hitting those 5000 words days, things have been better, or at least showing the promise of something better. Now, I just need to get the editing process down a little better. Incorporating more into the days I write would certainly be better. Rather then leaving a whole bunch of it to do at the end.

TIGERBLOOD: yep DAILYMOOD: good LOCATION: living room WORDSWRITTEN: none PUSHUPS: 2:00 plank TODO: research creative writing courses TV: glee BOOK: none GAME: none EXERCISE: none WEIGHT: 171 BREAKFAST: bacon & eggs LUNCH: big ass salad DINNER: ham, carrots, beans, cauliflower SNACKS: orange, grapes, lara bar ALCOHOL: 2 glasses wine BEDTIME: 11:30 AWAKE: 7:30s

 

Morning Pages Entry – April 11, 2014

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Well, here we are on day 5, friday, of my first week of doing 5000 words per day, and I’ve managed to hit that number every day. Today is the last day for doing it, and I have no doubt, that I will hit another 5000 words today. That is a friggin amazing feat. It’s crazy what people are capable of when they set they’re minds to something and believe in what they are doing. Sure, they may not be the most eloquent words ever written, truth be told, they are far from it, and yes, it did take me forever to get to this point, but fucking eh! I’ve gotten here. And, I did it against some adversity. My reward for doing it, the carrot I was dangling in from of my self, was to take the afternoons off, and do whatever the hell I pleased for them. [personal stuff edited out] But, in spite of being annoyed all to hell, I still managed to hit my numbers every day. Just imagine, how much better I can get at this when I’m in an even better frame of mind. I did actually come up with a good use of my afternoon times. I’ve always wanted to do graphics stuff, either through photoshop work, or some kind of animation tools. And, I think I should spend the afternoons coming up with some cool covers for my books. Sure, it may take me a while to get it done, and the first few likely won’t be all that pretty, but I have no doubt if I stick with it, just like the writing, then I can come up with some pretty amazing covers. And, quite possibly, I could even do that as a bit of a side endevour for other writers. I’m not sure, why so many writers shy away from the cover art. It’s like anything else (and specifically writing), you can get better at it if you just stick with it. Do a few drawing lessons, and get good at it. Come up with a concept, and see if you can express it artistically through visuals. Anyways, enough of that. It’s time to give a bit of thought to the words your going to write today. So, we have our three heroes reunited in the labs at the lower levels of the fort knox facitlity. Now, I think, what we want to do, is to get them out in the open. They want to make a break for it. A few possible scenes that they need to go through: 1. They need to fight their way through the Fort proper, and make it out into the open. 2. They need to fight through the zombie horde that are outside the fort. We’ll see, how they react to Christa. 3. The powers in charge inside the fort, need to have a little talk after the fact, about how they let them go, through Christa spreads her new mutation. 4. Our heroes Chaz, Alex, and Christa should have discussion as their leaving about where they go, and what they do next. 5. Do we leave them in the midst of huge attack by the freaks. The epilogue you had originally written, showed Chaz waking up from a coma into a world of pacified zombie freaks, controlled by the drug devisied by Dr. Montgomery.

That’s probably enough foder to get you through the next 5000 words. There are a few things that still need to be fleshed out about the book. The facility inside Fort Knox, needs to be fleshed out a lot more. More back story about the old fort, and the secret installation under it would be more interesting. You need more development of the different types of zombies encountered out in the wars. Even if you just use it for back story to help you make the novel more interesting. In general, I think you need to be a bit more descriptive about what’s going on in the novel. More description of the characters, and the environment. Right now, I feel the story is mostly plot driven. I need to come up with a bit of a checklist of things to focus on while editing the book. So, I’m not just editing for grammer, and logic, but actually, have a few things, that makes the story more engaging. You might want to give a bit of thought as well to the possibility of getting two stories out of soon to be 90,000+ words you’ve drafted. If the edit ends up adding more, then no doubt, you could end up over 100,000 words. That’s 400 pages, and there’s no doubt that putting out two novels before the summer would be a huge bonus. Even, if you have to write another 10,000 words, that would totally be worth it. Something to think about.

I should also add, that last night was the finals night for squash league finals, and it was a pretty exciting affair. There were some great close matches going on, and plenty of thanks went out to the organizing committee (including me) for a job well done over the season. It felt pretty good to be a part of it, and, just as much fun, to see everyone else having such a great time. There is still a bit of followup work to do, but overall, a pretty amazing night. And the really good thing for me on a personal level, was I didn’t have a thing to drink, or any junky food to eat the entire night. Yaaay! for moving towards getting in great shape for next year.

TIGERBLOOD: of course DAILYMOOD: annoyed, and pretty happy LOCATION: living room WORDSWRITTEN: 5147 PUSHUPS: 2:00 plank TODO: write, meet at jessicas school TV: American Horror Story BOOK: none GAME: none EXERCISE: none WEIGHT: 172 BREAKFAST: bacon & eggs LUNCH: big ass salad DINNER: none SNACKS: orange, grapes ALCOHOL: none BEDTIME: 12:00 AWAKE: 6:30

 

Morning Pages Entry – April 10, 2014

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So, it would seem the word count continues for the week. Three days in a row now, I’ve hit 5000 words. That’s pretty awesome. [personal stuff edited out]The whole big motivation for me doing this, was that I could get the 5000 words done before done, and then spend the rest of the day doing whatever I wanted. [personal stuff edited out] Anyways enough about that crap, it’s time to put a little more thought into where this story is going to go. So, yesterday I wrote about how Chaz and the General have a chat about Chaz becoming a member of his unit, and then Alex woke up, there was another talk between Chaz and the Colonel about the state of the Fort, then Chaz and Alex met over lunch to talk about launching their plan for the day to get Christa out. So, we need a scene, where Alex kidnaps Dr. Montgomery as she comes out of the elevator. We need a scene where

  1. Alex kidnaps Dr. Montgomery near the elevator.
  2. Chaz goes through the general’s office to find info on the lower level
  3. Maybe a descriptive scene describing Christa’s situation.
  4. Chaz and Alex break into the lower level using Dr. Montgomery to get Christa.
  5. A scene where they make their way out of the complex.
  6. A scene where the General and Dr. Momtgomery discuss how they let them get away to spread the new mutation, and that they have a cure.
  7. A scene where Chaz, Alex, & Christa are lost in the mob of zombies outside the complex . . . . THE END ???

So, is that the ending of the story. It’s not that bad, and it’s a bit of a cliff hanger leading to the next one. There is some resolution, in that Chaz did save the world. Maybe just not on his terms. Which is ok, I suppose. It’s not exactly a happily ever after, but it is an ending. Maybe Christa get’s away in the end. It would at least give you your first draft. We’re looking at probably close to 90000 words I think by the time your done with this. Quit a bit more then I had hoped for, but that’s alright, it’s a start. So, where do we go from here. Into editing I suppose, once that is done. We really need to give more thought to plotting the next novel a bit better. While there is an element to making stuff up as we go along, I do think, that it would be so much better if I had a bit more of an outline to go with before I start. Before I start with editing this first draft, there are a few things, I think I need to write about before I get started. Sort of a what to look for while I’m editing kind of guide. Things about the zombies. About, how there are different levels and types of them. Things about the world perhaps. About, how you could be a bit more descriptive with your writing in terms of giving the reader a better view of what the environment is like that they are in. Maybe a bit more character background on everyone. I want to have a better sense of the world, and the people that populate. Some better defined rules that go along with it. I do think, that I’ve come up with a bunch of stuff during my writing that can be applied to that world and character development, and I suspect that next time around, even if I do some of that at the beginning, that it’s something that will grow and change throughout the writing of the novel. I also think, if I lay things out a bit better now for this novel, that it will be usable and easier for the next one in the series. That’s definitely true.

TIGERBLOOD: a bit DAILYMOOD: fucking annoyed LOCATION: living room WORDSWRITTEN: 5103 PUSHUPS: none TODO: writing TV: American Horror Story BOOK: none GAME: Stealth EXERCISE: played squash WEIGHT: 172 BREAKFAST: bacon & eggs LUNCH: pulled pork DINNER: big ass salad SNACKS: orange, grapes, apple ALCOHOL: none BEDTIME: 11:00 AWAKE: 6:15