WiP Wed

Today is a lucky day. It's 09-09-09. That only happens once a year and only for the first twelve years of a new century. Is it your lucky day? If so, spill!

As for me, I've been steadily working on my WiP. I participated in Julie Butcher's #wordathon on twitter this past weekend. I need to finish this book I started over the summer. And I wrote 6200 words! I'm almost almost done; I'm on target to meet my self-imposed deadline of next Friday. And that makes me happy. It's more like joy. Or ecstasy.

I've been doing a few last minute tweaks on the ebook. Since I bought the software to convert it from Word to .PDF, I can do it a million times a day. Not that I do that or anything...but I could if I wanted to change just that--one--last--word. I've been working on making it available for iPhone and iPod Touch users, something I hope will happen soon after the release. Other than that, promotion is the biggest item on my plate for the ebook. And let me tell you, I have a whole new appreciation for authors who do their own promotion. It's scary and hard and sort of unchartered territory for me, but I've learned so, so much. And that's invaluable.

How's your week been?

Writing Throwdown a Go

Okay, so I got a lot of positive responses yesterday for the whole writing throwdown thang. So I created a forum on RallyStorm. You do have to sign up, but it's free and totally easy. I named it the Writing Throwdown! forum, but you have to use your imagination to see the exclamation point. Cuz it's not there. I'm going to have to get on Pat about not being able to use punctuation like that in forum names. Le sigh. Can't win 'em all. And you guys have awesome imaginations so I know you'll be able to picture the exclamation point on the title.

Click here to go to the forum. If you're not a member of RS, you'll need to join. I'm ElanaJ over there. (Of course. Who else would I be?) And you do have to request to join the forum, so it would be great if you would like, choose a name similar to your blogger name so I know who you are. This isn't just for everyone and their Shih Tzu. Of course, if you have a few writerly pals who you think would like to join the Throwdown, tell them about it and get them over there.

I can't wait to see what your goals and be able to post my progress for everyone to see! This is really going to help me stay on target and get EH done.

WiP Wednesday and...A Writing Throwdown Challenge!

Okay, so this past week I decided I really, really needed to buckle down and get some writing done on the ole NaNo novel (Elemental Hunger, hereafter referred to as EH). I deleted 27,000 words from the monster last week. That was about 95 pages.

Yeouch.

So I needed some lovelies to fill the now-blank pages. One day I wrote 1200 words and I was so proud! I hadn't written anything new in about two weeks. But I didn't write anything else for a few days. I needed some motivation. #wordathon came up on twitter. So I joined for the weekend with random strangers all over the world who were going to write.

And I wrote 9868 words!

Wow, it's amazing what I can do when there's a focus, a competition or someone else I have to report to. Or I can justify twittering...ahem.

But...there's always a downside with me. I haven't written a single word since 6 PM Sunday night. I'm one of those all-or-nothing girls. Or something.

So here's my (maybe not-so-) brilliant idea. Who out there wants to commit to writing with me? I'm thinking along the lines of Bobby Flay's Throwdown, where he claims he can out-do anyone's recipe. Sorta like that, where we claim we can write right alongside the best of them. We could be accountable to each other, report in on what we're doing, rally around to support, that kind of thing. I'm thinking of something I did with a group of people way back in the fall of last year. The challenge was to write 1000 words a day. We reported to each other (nearly) every day in a forum on Rally Storm (which is free and easy to join).

Now, 1000 words a day might be a little steep for me at the moment. Heck, anything over zero seems steep at the moment. But I'm thinking more like 500. Even people who aren't currently writing could join the fun. If you're editing, maybe your goal is to edit 10 pages a day. Or whatever. And maybe we can commit to this for the next 30 days.

The point is to get my own butt in gear and finish this darn thing up. I'm sitting at about 60 K and heading into the climax. Maybe if I have some of you to report to, I'll feel the pressure more. Cuz right now there's no pressure. I can read blogs all day without consequences, sit and wait for someone to post on my forums and then pounce, or read another 50 ABNA entries.

And we all know that's got to change. *snarf* No, really. It does.

So leave me a comment if you're interested. If the crickets show up today, I'll back away slowly to my safe place inside my head, 'kay? But maybe, just maybe, I'll create a forum on Rally where we can offer support and encouragement. And do some actual writing. ("Writing Throwdown" is sounding like a really kewl forum name...)

Yes?