Up to six thousand words on Blessing after a slow weekend. Just wasn’t in the mode to write, and I was watching the returns from my latest in my third name skyrocket 🙂
Having a pretty severe cold didn’t help.
Also restarted a story in my third name, changing the POV to better fit in the category where I intend to put it. It will be another contest story, if I finish it in time.
Now, I’ve got to drag my butt to work here in a few minutes… Ugh…
Getting ready to head back to the word processor after a little break. I’ve been smiling at the returns from my latest in my third name, and finishing stage 3 of testing and coding for my automated contest tracking software.
Up to the point where I can grab all the necessary information from the contest page, then grab the score and category from each individual author’s page, then grab the comments, views, and favorites from the story page itself.
Only one data set left, and that’s the votes from the toplists. Once I have all my markers located, it’s a matter of putting it all together in a single program that actually saves to the database. Hoping to complete the main testing during this contest, then give it a full alpha run during the Halloween contest.
If all works well, I’ll be ready to track full-on with the next Winter Holiday contest, and should be able to track all the contests to gather data from that point forward with little to no work on my part.
Yah, I know it doesn’t mean much to those of you who only care about my writing, but these little victories boost my feel-good factor, which is always good for creativity.
It’s also good to keep my hand in, so to speak, because I need to update the software that runs the site soon, and there’s likely to be glitches and corrections needed. Plus, I’ll be expanding new sections of the site in time. That at least should be of interest, because there will be a lot of behind the story info in those new sections.
Also need to fix the frikkin’ widget that displays the updates from this blog on the main site… Grr… don’t know why it broke, but I think I’m going to eventually ditch the default feed grab and write my own. That is, if the update to the software doesn’t fix the glitch.
Now, off to write.
Haven’t written much the last couple of days ( although I’m about to hit the word processor right now )Â I’ve just been tired as blazes.
Used plenty of time at work to muse, though. Have several things congealing.
Now, to see how far I can get into Blessing while I wait for my summer story in my third name to post.
Both of the stories I’ve been working on have been nagging at me with sticking points. They’re moving, but there was just something off about them.
The first ( in my third name ) I figured out yesterday. The story was just getting too deep for tales in that name, but not nearly deep enough to develop into a larger story, which will usually get posted as Les Lumens. I’m probably going to strip it down, speed it up, and leave it in my third name.
Blessing was giving me the same sort of problems. In this case, the problem was the other way around. Dara just wasn’t complex enough. Her motivation going through the story wasn’t really strong enough to carry off what I want to accomplish without a much longer story.
She needed a flaw or a wound of some kind, and I came up with it today. Meshes in perfectly with a character trait I’d already given my male protagonist, and I think I may just be in a position to go forward from here. The young one appears to be bedding down for the night, so I’m going to put on some music, and see if I can’t get this rolling.
Oh, head over to the forum and check out the “Tales from the tabletop” thread. I’ll be relating some stories there from my old gaming days that give you some insight into where my world and my characters came from. The game and the people who played it were integral to the genesis of my writing, so you might find it interesting. Many of them are quite funny as well.
Blessing is up to 4500 words, and that other story is a little over 2k. They’re both moving along — yet another example of my momentum getting back into a good place.
I know it’s frustrating to hear that SOTM isn’t moving, but the other stories are what’s getting my juices flowing right now, and that’s what I need to get everything else moving. I’ve been in a slump for a while, and I don’t want to break the momentum by trying to force anything. The next chapter will come. It’s beginning to nag at me like Blessing did, and that’s how things get off the ground and flying.
On a brief break, and then I’m going to jump back on the word processor.
