Sunday, August 26, 2012

Sun Update - and Coming Attractions

Still on the reduced summer blogging schedule for one more week. I'm trying to ramp up for full production in September, but I'm not yet where I want to be.

Where I want to be is a whole week ahead.  That is, I want to have all but the final polish done on all blog posts and art for the upcoming week by the time I do this "coming attractions" post.  I'm sort of rolling in to that, because I have a number of rough draft posts for further out, but this week.  But for this coming week, you have to squint really really hard to believe that what I have done constitutes a complete, unpolished draft.

This problem could haunt me a little throughout September because I don't have the episodes on this blog story done ahead of time. I have a very good idea of what will happen in each of those episodes.  There will be 41 total, plus a "credit cookie" episode which will lead into next summer's continuation of the story.  (There is one scene that might stretch into two, but even if so, the story WILL be done by the end of September.)

This week's progress for A Round of Words in 80 Days:

 
Wednesday Day 52 - 120 minutes
Thursday Day 53 - LOOOooooonng day at day job. (Or at least it seemed that way.)
Friday Day 54 - 190 minutes
Saturday Day 55 - 245 minutes

The tricky part here is remembering to record everything.  And I've decided to record everything (except screwing around on the internet).  I'm treating this like a job rather than a business. I'm punching the clock.  Since the day job decided not to demand the extra hours of me this semester after all, I figure that leaves 20 hours a week to devote to this blog.

Now, that's not twenty hours of nose-in-manuscript writing.  That twenty hours has to cover things like blog maintenance, approving comments, setting up a post template, brainstorming post ideas, everything related to running the blog.  In other words, what I would be doing if I were hired to do this and paid for it.

It won't include screwing around on the internet (even if it's considered "networking" or "promotion" or "learning" or "research"), or the informal idle "thinking" time that we all do on or off the clock.  Although I will include some tasks like that if they are formal and focused.  (For instance specific and necessary research tasks, or the time I take to list a post on a linky list.)

Even so, I think it's going to be tricky hitting the 20 hour point.  Especially if I keep failing to capture the work I do on the clock.

This Past week's posts:


Coming This Week on the Blog:

Monday - Episode 33 "Alex Captured"
...and Rozinshura is once more disappointed.

Wednesday - Organizing my Blog - The Tickler File
I'm treating my blog as a serious (well, sorta) publication this fall, so I will have an editorial calendar.  To manage it, I'm going old-school with a "Tickler File."

Thursday - Episode 34  "The High Commissioner Arrives"
As the High Commissar arrives, Rozinshura decides to skip the detective work and go straight to the top. If he can.

See you in the funny papers.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm rather enjoying the story. I'm curious to see what will happen with Alex and Thorny. And I wonder if all this will Alex still feel he belongs there?

Staying ahead is a hard trick to do but you of all people can pull it off. This is a blog about challenges after all ;)

Unknown said...

Just keep it up. Consistently writing, is the only way to get closer to the finish line.

The Daring Novelist said...

Thanks Mark and Ryan!

And yes, there will be more payoff and a bit of twist in Alex's relationship with Awarshawa.

One of my goals this week is to get a patchy draft of the whole rest of the story done.

Lauralynn Elliott said...

Are those numbers actual hours you wrote on those days? If so, then...whew! :)

Good job for this past week and good luck for this coming week!

The Daring Novelist said...

:-)

Like I said in the post -- those are all the hours I work on the blog, not just writing.