Waning progress

Edits

I got half way through editing another chapter the other day but progress has been glacial.

Kiddos

Theater Camp has started for my oldest. The teacher pulled me to the side and commented on how much she had matured over the last year. This is one of those bittersweet moments parents feel. I’m glad she’s maturing, this will open up new opportunities for her. But as her mother I miss the baby, the toddler, the preschooler and so on.

I took my youngest to the library to see Ronald McDonald but he was running late and wouldn’t be there till one. We had to get to camp to pick up my oldest.

Outline

I had a biker dream the other night which morphed into the idea for a book. I actually jotted down the idea and even ‘finished’ it. The story always goes the way it wants to when I write it but I did outline it till the end.

 

Found motivation

But lost the battle to sleep

Summer Break

We have went bowling, skating, had recitals and visited family so far. More of the latter today. A few day trips are in our future along with some overnight ones.

Edits

I’m excited I got two more chapters edited last night. As it is June I’m past my deadline. So everything I do now is catch up. I’ll keep you up to date on my writing journey. I hope to be done by next week with my current edits. Out of the Blue is inching closer to being published so I may forgo my break from editing to get it ready and out in the world.

Blog

Trying a new page format with this post to see if I like it. Fingers crossed.

Editing – Progressing Slowly

No posts

Motivation has left me. But this is my progress from today and yesterday.

Editing

Word count now 52,065 – Goal 47,462 – Actual place from original document 48,172

Day 38 – Chapter 41

Words added to original document 3,893 – Word gain of 50.

I’m still ahead. I’m not going to make my goal of being done by the end of May. So, I’m thinking of revising it to when my kids are gone at ‘summer camps’ I’ll work on my book. Everyone is getting busy and it’s taking longer to get feedback from people. I wanted to take the summer off and hang with the tiny people but I hate to leave this unfinished. I only have 12 chapters left. So close!

Dance Recital

I have to cut this short because I have to travel an hour away to get dancers tights for Saturdays recital. Dress rehearsal at the venue tonight and pictures. Should be an interesting night. I have some post ideas churning in my head but I forget to write them down as they come to me in the middle of the night while I can’t sleep.

 

Field Day and no motivation

Allergies

Field Day

I spent all day yesterday at my oldest school, helping with field day. It was a nice sunny warm day unlike last year which was chilly. I forgot to take my allergy medicine so standing outside in the grass lot behind the school led to much sneezing and sniffling on my part. My eye is a lovely red shade for my forgetfulness yesterday.

No Motivation

I don’t know if it’s the bought with my allergies from yesterday making me so tired and unwilling to work on my book. Maybe it’s the idea of going to work to only clean tonight that’s dragging my willingness to work away from me. I’ll post tomorrow if I eventually get motivated to edit today.

Editing and work

Late posts

This is my progress from yesterday. I struggled with motivation. Since we’ve gotten back from the water park I have taken a nap everyday. My little one is out of school now. She’s been crawling up next to me on the couch and within minutes falls asleep. I soon follow. I hope my napping passes soon my house can’t handle it.

Editing

Word count 46,898 – Goal 38,719 – Actual from original document 43,055

Woot, woot! I’m ahead. I’m not sure how I’m staying ahead but I hope it continues.

Day 31 – Chapter 36

Ahead again. The trend continues. Go, me! Go, me! Happy dance time.

Words added to original document 3,843 – Word loss of 41

I had no plans to add any words to this so the fluctuation doesn’t bother me. But since starting the second half it has been a decrease in word count. I have finally taken away more than I added in a day. It will take a while before I make a dent in the almost 4,000 words I added to the first half.

Work

My work has closed until the 31st for deep cleaning. I hope to use these evening to do housework. I don’t get a lot done through out the day while editing. Dishes and laundry are the main things. They practically do themselves.

Recovering and editing

Not in that order

Editing

Day 30

Word goal 37,470

Words added today 79

Words added total 3,963

Place without words added 41,003

I’m in the middle of chapter 36. I’m not sure how taking three days off got me ahead of schedule but somehow it did. My chapter goal is 6 days ahead and word count is 3,500 ahead. (I’m tired so I might have read the calendar wrong. We’ll find out tomorrow night.) Adding to my word count has seemed to slow. I don’t know if this is a sign of the second half being better written or if I need to make better changes. I’ll try to add a photo of my edits tomorrow.

Recovering

I’m still sore from the water park adventure. I had to work tonight and the girl blessed me by calling and asking me to switch hours with her. I worked less than three hours. I ‘ll hate this come payday but today my sore leg muscles are happy. I did make chili for dinner since I got off work early.

 

Editing part two

The right way

Editing

Over the weekend my editor sent me her edits for part two of Her Unexpected Life. I already had the edits of that section from a lady who helps me. So last night and this morning I went through and accepted or rejected all the editors. Then the lady’s. Finally I went through and deleted all my double spaces. As I go I’m going to try to add commas. I under punctuate. I’m also embarking on showing and not telling now. But I needed a break.

Water Park

The kids loved our trip to the water park. We were there for a few days and they still weren’t sick of it when we left. Mommy’s legs feel like jello so today is a couch day. I guess since it’s not peak season there weren’t any lines for anything. So, it was straight to the top of the water slide. No breaks on the climb.

At the hotel they have a magic wand quest game. We bought them a wand to share and went on adventures before and after we went to the water park. We didn’t get all of those accomplished. Maybe next time. The adventure spanned four floors and a lot of the time it was easier to take the stairs. Adding to the misery my legs feel today.

A few of our friends stayed as well and a few met us there. The girls enjoyed having their friends to play with at the water park. And us parents enjoyed having someone to talk to. Prior to their arrival my husband and I were doing divide and conquer. He took one and went one way and I took the other and headed somewhere else.

Hope you had a great weekend. Happy writing.

Edits and Water Parks

Edits

I completed adding my editors changes that I could find. I generally use the document she sends and prove or decline the changes for some reason I did not do that this time as I mentioned yesterday. Making adding her changes to my changes a crazy mess.

Now, I am going to add some things like scents and noises. I’m lacking in those. But I plan to be done with it by the time she sends me the other half back next week with her changes. I’ll use her documents this time. Lol!

Water Parks

We are  visiting an indoor water park today. Our first trip wish me luck.

Editing and bowling

Both went better than expected

Bowling

Had a changed up schedule yesterday. My littlest had a school trip to the bowling alley from 10-12 and no school after. She actually bowled on her own. I usually have to help her push the balls down the lane. She was pretty socialized out after and spent the rest of the afternoon playing in her room with her shopkins. So, mommy got to edit till time to go to work.

Edits

I got chapter 23, 24 and 25 edited, leaving only two chapters in this half of the story. I find it easier to divide it into at least to sections. It gives me such a great feeling seeing the purple highlighted chapter creeping closer to the bottom.

Where does this three chapter gain put me? I’m on day 25 so I got caught up there. I’m at 33,634 words, goal for yesterday was 31,225. But how much was added. Math, blah… Original word count was 62,451. My number now is 65,910. A total gain of 3,459 of which only 170 words were added yesterday. So if we do a little subtraction I’m at 30,175 words edited of the original document. Just shy of a day behind.

Edits, doctors and dancing

Two of the three was a major disappointment yesterday

I’m going to start with yesterdays edits.

I got chapter 21 & 22 edited, I’m 30,000 words into the document now and am on day 24.

Where am I supposed to be based on my plan: chapter 24 and 29,976 words edited.

My original word count before I started was 62,451. I’m now at 65,740. That’s a total of 3,289 words added since my edits started. So, I gained 232 words in my edits yesterday.

If you minus that increase of 3,289 from 30,000 you get my actual progress on the original document. I’m at 26,711 of the original document. I’m 3,265 words behind schedule. I’m hoping to catch up Thursday.

But progress is progress so I’m excited.

Now on to doctors.

My youngest had an appointment with her allergists and we have to avoid her allergens for one more year. One was so close it was ridiculous but we’ve waited this long one more year won’t kill us.

Finally we are left with dance.

I’m not happy with the place my daughter currently dances. The teacher is nice enough and the kids like her but when she cancels classes for something she always cancels my daughters class. Granted she’s only four but their recital routine is crazy. Kids run everywhere, half of them don’t know where to be because they’ve never been told. I wish the teacher would use spots and put each kids name on one and line them up a certain way and make it the same way every practice. I know getting four-year olds to do stuff can be like herding cats in water but with a little more effort on the teachers part the chaos can be minimized.

She is currently canceling or rescheduling my daughters class because her boy is doing t-ball. I don’t want to deny a mother the chance to see her child play but I feel when she scheduled the class on Tuesdays she made a commitment to the kids to be there and maintain that schedule. Like we did when we signed our kids up. I put my daughter in soccer, it’s on Monday’s. Am I supposed to make my daughter miss soccer because the dance teacher decided her own schedule isn’t convenient for her anymore?

The sad part is the same thing happened during the beginning of the year but then her reason was the local high school musical which practices always happened to be during the hour of the four years classes and never during any other groups practice time. Then we got rescheduled to Saturdays. I didn’t sign up to do Saturdays. My oldest Swim Meets are on Saturday during the school year. A few times we had to decide between dance or a Swim Meet. If it only happened once or twice I would understand but it’s been happening the whole season.

Declaring Uncle

Just for today

I am on editing day 23. I made it two more chapters; 19 and 20 even reread 18. So I gained a day here.

My word count should be at 28,727. I’m actually at 27, 064. Less than a day and a half behind this way.

I gained 408 more words today. I’m not sure how but this total keeps climbing. It’s 3,057 for the whole project this round of edits.

Today was more of a normal day but tomorrow is crazy. I hope to at least get two chapters.

Behind

Three days

Well I crunched the numbers after squeaking out chapter eighteen tonight.

I’ve been editing for 22 days now. My goal was fifty chapters in fifty days. So I’m a few days behind.

I took the beginning word count and divided it by 50 and came up with 1249 words need edited a day. I should be at 27,478. My actual number is 24,807. A little over two days behind.

The original word count for the whole book was 62,451. I’m at 65,100 now. That’s a gain of 2,649 words.

What do all these numbers tell me? I need another ‘good’ editing day like I had last Thursday. Minimal distractions, pajama day with nowhere to go, and a four-year old willing to let mommy work for 45 minute stretches.

What are you doing since Camp Nano is over? Did you continue with your project or did you start a new one?

Tiny steps

Small edits

I got chapter 17 edited today. I didn’t expect to get anything.

We went to see some caverns today to test my littlest’s ability. It was two hours away and we toured two caves, about two hours worth. She did fine so bigger adventures are in our future.

A few more

Edited

Today my youngest school is celebrating Mother’s Day so I’ll be attending that in the middle of my writing/editing time today. So, I stole some time away from cleaning and got two more chapters edited today, 15 & 16.

I really should be using my Word Count Dashboard to edit this to keep me on track but I’ve been lazy. At least I am editing. And I know I’m behind schedule or at least I feel like I am. I haven’t even gotten a calendar out to see how many days I have and how much I need to do every day to get finished by my target. See lazy and I know it.

What things have you neglected to do that if you did them they would help you tremendously ?

Large Achievement

Hopefully Major Accomplishments

I sailed through the chapters today. I got through 10, 11, 12, 13, & 14. I’m over half way done editing the first half of Her Unexpected Life.

That evil voice is haunting me though. It says, “You got too much accomplished today. There’s no way your edits were any good.” I plan on drowning him later tonight while I celebrate getting so much done.

What accomplishments are you celebrating?