Today is Sunday, and I never really expect to get a full day’s work done on a Sunday. I plan for it, but only because I likely wouldn’t do anything if I didn’t do that. So, today I will just list what I did accomplish rather than what I planned to do:

• Keep working on the Wendigo Novel 1 outlining process, this time with the plan in Karen Wiesner’s “First Draft in 30 Days“. Today I completed Day 3, which is coming up with a basic plot sketch for the story. This includes everything from stating the novel’s story goal, the subplots, any romance, points of tension in the plot, areas where that tension can be released, the black moment, the resolution, and any wrap-up to the resolution. Subplots is one area I’ve always struggled with when writing longer pieces, but I was able to come up with close to 10 basic ideas for this story. Some are mutually exclusive to one another, while others will be weaved together. It’ll be interesting to see what else comes up during the outlining process and then the actual drafting. It’s got me excited, and that’s one of the goals!
• Finish editing my “Ultimate Evil” short story. The story is finished, and submitted. I was able to pare it down to right at 1,000 words. Again, I don’t consider it a hilarious piece, but hopefully its tongue-in-cheek nature will provide some amusement. This is my first short story of 2015. A very short one, but it was a short week. Next week begins a longer tale that should take the entire week to write.
• Finish reading Rayne Hall’s “Writing Fight Scenes“. Success! All in all, a book worth picking up. Some of the information is common sense, but we all know that common sense ain’t so common. The chapter on euphonics was very interesting, as were the fight scene examples that she put at the end of the books. Makes me want to go pick up Storm Dancer now… And I just did.

Tomorrow begins the first full week of 2015. I plan to make use of every day this week, from completing a new short story to completing my WOTF entry to carrying on with the outlining and planning of the Wendigo novel. Also, I will begin reading a new pair of books: Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman and Volume 30 of the Writers of the Future. I’m looking forward to it all!

Here are today’s numbers:

Blog Posts: 435
Planning and outlining: 1,800
Short Fiction: 0
Novel Fiction: 0
Salable words: 0

Total Fiction for Month: 0

Total Salable for Month: 1,000

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 0

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 1,000

Today I set out with the following goals:

• Read the second 1/3 of Rayne Hall’s “Writing Fight Scenes“. Success! Areas covered today: the difference between male and female fighters (Both physical and psychological), unarmed combat styles, types of fights, and how to write group fights (Group vs. Group or 1 vs. Group). All in all, very interesting. I didn’t know that women have a greater tendency to reach for improvised weapons in a fight than men do. But, when I think of my own tendencies I gravitate toward one of three things, depending on what I’m carrying: my fists (Never leave home without ’em!), my knife, or my sidearm. Very interesting, indeed!
• Continue reading through Volume 28 of the Writer’s of the Future. I’ve read two more really good stories from the book. I’ll likely write up a post about it either tomorrow or Monday morning, whenever I finish the book. I’ve enjoyed some stories in there more than others, but I’ve liked them all so far. One can learn a lot about pacing, characterization, dialogue, and plot from reading other people’s works, as well as what one’s own weaknesses and strengths are relative to other authors.
• Keep working on the Wendigo Novel 1 outlining process, first with Michael A Stackpole’s “21 Days To a Novel“. Day 17: Creating Problem Arcs is finished for three of my main heroes, and I have a pretty good handle on how to add more problems for my characters to solve throughout the course of the novel. I’ve wound up with a few interesting plot twists and scenes from this day’s exercise, and have increased tension between the three. This should make the novel more interesting.
• Keep working on the Wendigo Novel 1 outlining process, this time with the plan in Karen Wiesner’s “First Draft in 30 Days“. Today I wrapped up Day 2’s exercise, which is coming up with general and character-specific sketches for the different settings to be shown in the novel. I’ve found there are currently four towns that will be visited, but there are at least as many towns that will only be mentioned by name in this book. I want to have a basic sketch for each of them, as some of the characters have either visited these places or will encounter people who have visited them. It pays to know more of the setting than will be shown, as it helps make the place feel more real. Tomorrow will involve the creating of plot threads.
• Keep editing my “Ultimate Evil” short story. Yesterday was all research. Today was all editing. In the articles I am hoping to emulate I found that the length of the articles tended to be no fewer than 15 paragraphs (Sometimes one-sentence paragraphs, so maybe “blocks of text” is a better description) and no greater than 30. A minimum of 3 paragraphs was dedicated to the summary of the entire article at the beginning (The ol’ punchline at the beginning trick of news articles. Get to the point, then rewind back to the start), and at least 2 paragraphs were dedicated to an aftermath conclusion, although there could be a lot more. Ultimate Evil began the day at 32 paragraphs and around 1,250 words. I managed to cut it down to 1,100 words, but now it’s 35 paragraphs. I’m going to put it aside for today, but tomorrow I plan to finish it and send it to a few people I think will appreciate it for their comments. After that, it’s off to somewhere.
• Continue my Writers of the Future third draft edits. I wanted to spend two hours on this today, but failed. It was at the end of my already packed day, and other things came up. That’s all right, though. Progress was made on the one story, so there’s always tomorrow!

Here are today’s numbers. Again, no new fiction written, but a good bit of groundwork laying:

Blog Posts: 663
Planning and outlining: 1,200
Short Fiction: 0
Novel Fiction: 0
Salable words: 0

Total Fiction for Month: 0

Total Salable for Month: 0

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 0

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 0

(Note: For January, there is no Day 1. Took the day off to be with family, and to read.)

Today I set out with the following goals:

• Read the first 1/3 of Rayne Hall’s “Writing Fight Scenes“. I succeeded in this, and maybe read a bit more than I needed to. Areas covered today: the difference between entertaining and gritty fight scenes, and types of combat/weapons up to blunt weapons. There’s a good bit of knowledge in here, and many Youtube links to fight scenes to study.
• Keep working on the Wendigo Novel 1 outlining process, first with Michael A Stackpole’s “21 Days To a Novel“. I am currently on Day 17 and miscalculated how long it would take. I allotted an hour for it, and it will take anywhere from two to three. I plan to finish this up tomorrow.
• Keep working on the Wendigo Novel 1 outlining process, this time with the plan in Karen Wiesner’s “First Draft in 30 Days“. I’m using two different books because they each have a different focus. Stackpole’s book is focused primarily on characters and plot. Wiesner’s takes characters and plot and throws in setting, dialogue, subplotting, and a whole mess of other things that turn good novels into great novels. I recommend both books for those who have yet to get a novel written and want a place to start. I’d also recommend David Farland’s “Million Dollar Outlines” for this. Read it over last Spring and plan to re-read it sometime soon.
• Keep editing my “Ultimate Evil” short story. It’s basically the telling of a good versus evil story in the format of a wartime newspaper article. I didn’t get to do much direct editing on the story today. I spent a couple of hours researching old BBC articles from World War II to get an idea of the kind of structure that most of those articles were written in. My goal is to finish it tomorrow and get it send off by Sunday at the latest.
• Continue reading through Volume 28 of the Writer’s of the Future. I’ve read about 2/3 of it, so my goal is to finish the rest by the end of Sunday and start Volume 30 on Monday. I haven’t done this yet, but that’ll end up as bedtime reading.

And that’s it for the day. No actual fiction words written. Just a lot of planning that will hopefully make the writing part easy. Tomorrow I want to keep up with what’s listed here, but I also want to see if I can delve into my Writers of the Future entry (Yes, unfortunately I ended up missing the deadline with my tale. But, that just means it’ll be even more polished for next quarter).

Due to the holidays there is no Drafty Wednesday or WIPika Friday posts this week. That will pick up again next week! I’ll also be actively writing a new short story next week, so expect the work count to start jumping.

Blog Posts: 518
Planning and outlining: 1,880
Short Fiction: 0
Novel Fiction: 0
Salable words: 0

Total Fiction for Month: 0

Total Salable for Month: 0

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 0

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 0