word count quandry

Today I wrote just over 900 words on my "B" story, which is based on a scene I found in one of my Yami notebooks. The scene in question falls somewhere near the end of the story, since it involves Tsuzuki and Hisoka gettin' busy with each other, I've been working backwards from that point, trying to figure out how they got there.

This, I'm finding, is not such a simple thing to do! In fact, it's quite a challenge. Over the past couple of weeks I've written several versions of what I keep hoping will be the beginning of this story. I like several of them, but none of them "feels" quite right.

I'm wondering if I should still record those scenes as part of my weekly word count? I'm 99% sure that they won't end up in the story, but they are still part of my daily writing practice in the sense that I showed up at my keyboard and wrote them. So I'm leaning towards counting them in the sense of "words that I wrote this week," and then maybe having a separate counter for my actual projects.

Either way, I find that keeping track of my words per day is really motivating. Even if what I wrote today doesn't end up in the story, I can still say I accomplished something.

Random Generator Recs

I love random generators. When I'm stuck for ideas, I often hit my favorite random generator sites for just that perfect bit of random serendipity that will get my brain bouncing off in fresh new directions. Here are a few of my faves:

Seventh Sanctum - there are (seemingly) a billion different generators here, on all kinds of topics from the bizarre to the hilarious to the downright... useful. My favorite area to visit on this website is the section called "writing," which has several random plot-generators, in various flavors.

Nine Frenchboys - has a comprehensive selection of generators on all kinds of things, from settings to costume ideas to character profiles. For those who, like me, write in anime-based fandoms, I particularly recommend the Japanese Male and Japanese Female name generators, which will happily spew out as many names as you need for all those pesky incidental characters.

Cool Bits - this is my favorite plot generator of all time. As the name suggests, it generates the "cool bits" for your story and leaves the rest to your imagination. There's something so evocative about the way the prompts are worded that my imagination starts running wild. (Even when it doesn't exactly make sense.) Here's a random example:

Your story begins with a woman who dresses sensibly for battle in the ocean. The antagonist is a priestess who is motivated because they've always wanted to be a hero. Plot elements include overcoming an age difference in a romantic relationship and premature greying.

Next time you're feeling stuck for a story idea, give it a whirl. It's guaranteed to get you thinking in avenues you wouldn't have come up with on your own, and you never know--it might be the inspiration for your next novel.

Putting the Pillow Back in the Caffeine

So for the past few days I've had no ability to focus on anything whatsoever. In my writing, or at my job, and even though I was putting the hours in at my keyboard, my word count was in the toilet. Then it dawned on me that I probably haven't been sleeping enough. Duh!
See, for the past few months I've been getting up at 5:30 am to go and write at a coffee shop that's near where I work. (That would be the "caffeine" part of this whole thing.) I've been very disciplined about doing this, and get in 2 to 2 1/2 hours of writing in every single weekday. What I'm not so good at doing is getting to sleep at a reasonable time.
So last night I made a point of being in bed--with the lights off, not reading, jotting in my notebook, or whatever--at 10pm. And guess what? I had a great writing day this morning! My word count is back up to where I'd like it to be, and I was able to get into the "zone" rather than forcing myself to put words on the page.
So the moral of the story is... taking care of yourself physically is part of being a writer. Ya gotta eat properly, exercise once and a while (hey, I'm a work in progress) and--get enough sleep, dammit!

Revisiting Past Work

A few years ago, I had a daily writing practice where I would take my notebook to a cafe and write every day on my lunch break. What I got out of it was notebooks and notebooks filled with little scenes for the various fandoms I've written in. I have some Star Wars Han/Luke stuff, a little bit of Remus/Sirius from Harry Potter, and a whole lotta Yami no Matsuei Tsuzuki/Hisoka stuff.
What used to frustrate me to no end was the fact that none of these little scenes ever seemed to turn into stories, and I ended up feeling that this practice was ultimately a Big Waste of Time, that I was totally ADD and horrible at plotting. Some of which might be true. But I've been going over my Yami notebooks in the last few months and was surprised to find that I like most of the scenes in them, which is very heartening. As for the fact that none of them became stories, well, apparently it's up to me to make that happen. So with that end in mind, I'm working on transcribing some of the better ones into a Scrivener document and thinking of ways to expand them so they have beginnings, middles and ends.