I’ve just resumed writing my story Under the shadow of Extinction! Now I have breached the 4000’s word mark. Although most of said writing is solely trying to get the scale right of my antagonist, Extinction. He is very BIG. And I’m trying to give my primary antagonist a suitable introduction.
Beyond that… I have/am trying to get the road to the climax of chapter 3 done, the climax is of this chapter is what I kinda need to get perfect. (Yet I’m still not finished writing chapter 2)
Writing’s a funny thing. Just when I thought I’d mapped out my first chapter perfectly, a new idea comes creeping up. I love it. I love this whole process of cutting, shifting, planning, balancing… The only part that scares me is the actual writing the prose part. It’s my biggest weakness. Oof. But! I shall not be daunted!
I am determined to make this story happen.
Writing is something that gets better as you keep doing it. That’s really one of the few ways to improve. It’s scary at first, but also fun when you manage to get the words out.
If it’s the actual writing that’s hard for you, you should try scanning your favorite books. That can help you feel more at ease and learn how to create your work’s structure.
The scariest thing for me was the first time I posted the beginning portion of my WIP earlier this month. I was so scared I’d get hurtful feedbacks 
Everyone has been helpful, though.
I’ve had a really good week. A couple of fun things I’ve been doing.
Google Street View: I’ve used Google Street View to locate interesting streets and neighborhoods and replaced my generic descriptions with real places.
Cut cut cut: I cut 2500 words today and replaced it with 300 new better words.
My new update is coming out on time. I might even be a day early. Basically I’ve reworked the first 25% of the game. It’s a major revision both in terms if content and style. It’s also much leaner and fast moving. My goal is to get the 25-50% of the playthrough in similar shape in February.
Good fortune to everyone with their writing this weekend.
I’m in a similar boat - I got about done with the first act of my work and am now basically rewriting it to accommodate the suggestions and critiques people have given me, cut out stuff that didn’t work or go anywhere, reorder some things, etc. It’s been intimidating, because this is the first work I’ve actually gotten to anything like this stage with and I don’t totally know how, but also really exciting that I’m at a point where I care enough about a story I wrote to try and level it up, if you will.
Still trying to kick myself into gear in productivity in general, but I think I’m slowly starting to slide back into some of the habits I slipped out of in December. Ready to head onward and upward. 
This month’s goals:
What I accomplished:
Well. I finished my game for the dark fantasy contest.
http://chooseyourstory.com/story/messiah-for-hire
Words can not describe my frustration.
I want to finish chapter 2 of my story, has I had a boon of inspiration last night, although I went to bed has soon has I got home because I was super tired. Well… the main problem(s) semi lies in me not being able to figure out how to describe the scenes that I picture in my head, my brain having a fixation on creating a epic enough into for my primary antagonist - and his herald - who shows up in chapter 4 (the prime antagonist shows up in person in chapter 3) said herald is something of a spoiler if I go into the details of his character/motivations, like his master.
Another problem is me trying to get the foreshadowing done right about the antagonists motivations and identities For one of them anyway… now that I think about it, it applies to both of them just in different ways - which is stressing me out.
To sum up: I want to write, but I can’t… well more like I can, it just seems hard… because I am trying to force myself to write chapter two even though I don’t have the drive to do so, because leaving chapter two unfinished is something of an insult to the cannon characters? Dose that make sense?
Congrats. I don’t know why you worry so much, some of those people aren’t even going to turn in anything and will be thrown in the pit of SHAME.
Just had to say that for the first time in 18 months, I actually both set and reached a monthly writing goal. Since I am just easing my way back into it after that wreck that was 2020, I went with 10k as my goal for January, and I hit 10,054 as of yesterday morning. I think I will do 11 or 12,000 for February, try to turn the heat up a little bit. It’s never easy, but it feels good to actually be on the way back.
Congratulations. I’ve done the same today. I’ve done a massive update on the first 25% of my game that I’m really happy with. I’m going to try to match it in February and have the next 25% all revised, fleshed out and updated as well.
Stick with it people it gets easier and smoother. I’ve been plugging away for years. Today I did a randomtest, I only found 8 errors and that’s after a month of tinkering and rewriting. All of them were easy to fix. I was surprised, when I was first starting out it would have been more like 50 bugs and several hours to fix them all.
January is turning into February … for me that is a good thing.
My hope is to put into practice what I have been working to improve and to be able to share something for the upcoming month.
Carry on, everyone.
For everyone in need of a hug/support/compassion from this month:
In the end I wrote 2 character sheets. 5 pages came out
WOOOOOO!!! Guess what I got done today?! HaHA! I’m writing Chapter two!!! And I’ve been writing for hours!
Progress! Progress!! Progress!!! LOT’S OF PROGRESS! 860 worlds (and counting) of glorious progress!!!
edit: I’m now at 5001 worlds! YES!
Congratulations! Moments like that are always so precious for a writer.
It can be difficult to get in the mood sometimes, so having the motivation to write for hours is such a great feeling.
I didn’t meet my word count goal or my regular goals, but I do feel like I got a lot done. One of the segments of the chapter gave me so much trouble I’m surprised I actually finished it already, what I’m dreading is going over that action scene again and having to edit or rewrite it in the future. I think I’m getting better at action sequences, but when multiple people are involved my writing just gets messy.
I just started college again and spend more time researching and writing papers than actually writing my book, which makes me a little sad. I need my creative outlet or soon I won’t be able to concentrate.
January was okay, better than December at least, but I’m hoping I’ll get more done during February.
I made it! halfway there. Ambitious goal for february is to finish the complete first draft. yeehaw
Well, for some value of “something” I met the writing goal. I definitely met the stretch goal, though, with a total of 12k words this month.
I’d ideally like to be a little faster than this, but I do also have the main project to think about so it’s probably best not to get too ambitious, as it were.
I did well, I think. Let’s look back at my goals:
See you all in the February thread!