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Thursday, July 24, 2014

WORD WAR: Day Four

Jill here! I can't believe how great you're all doing on the word war! I'm very impressed. It's been fun watching you all encourage each other's writing.

I had a blah day yesterday. I woke up tired and could not find my groove at all. Still, I forced myself to write. (After I whined to Steph and she so graciously cheered me on.) And I even got creative and switched projects, just so I'd stay productive. Here's what I did:

King's Folly: 1715 words
Storyworld First: 1292 words
A couple dozen marketing tweets for the Rebels release: 326 words
For a grand total of: 3333 words

And then I watched Stardust. What a great movie!

How did you all do?



If you're just joining us on the word war (or if today's the first you've heard of it) here's a quick recap: 

A word war is when you and another writer (or in this case, lots of other writers!) compete to see who can write the most words in a designated period of time. 

This word war began yesterday will end on Friday night. It's a come-and-go, write-when-you-can style of war, so it's not too late to join us!

The goal is to buckle down and focus on our manuscripts whenever we can, make good use of our writing time, and encourage each other as we do. Hopefully you'll be meeting new writers and deepening friendships as the weekend goes on!

Here's how you can connect with each other:
1. In the comments section of the blog. Something as simple as "Just wrote 1,000 words in the last hour!" is fine. There's strength in being able to encourage each other and in knowing that others are hard at work too.

2. On Twitter, using the hashtag #GTW or on the Go Teen Writers Facebook Group. (This is a closed group, so if you're not a member yet, apply to join and then shoot me an email telling me so that I can get you approved pronto.)

Looking forward to a long day of writing with you!

325 comments:

  1. My total for this week thus far is 9,420, hoping for a total of 11 or 12k today THIS IS SO MUCH FUN Thank you Jill for holding this :D

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    1. That's so great! Congrats, and keep it up :)

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    2. Yay, TW!! :D Great job! I hope you make your total today! :D

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  2. I got a little under 1,000 written yesterday; I'm currently at around 18,200 words in my WIP. I hope to cross the 20,000-word line by the end of this week!

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  3. Wrote 3,637 words yesterday! Finished Act I of my first draft, which is pretty exciting. :) Looking forward to getting into Act II today.

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    1. Great job, Brooke! What's your WIP about?

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    2. Thanks, guys! My WIP is about a girl who joins an underground organization to save her brother. He's been kidnapped, and she has to pay off his debts. I've had the idea for years, but I've really struggled with it. And now I'm finally embracing the "terrible first draft" thing, and just pushing through. This word war is a huge help!

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    3. Bravo on that 3K!! :D Keep up the great work!

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  4. Ah! I only have 946 left to write to reach my 50k goal!

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    1. AWESOME!!! :) You can make it there!!! :D

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    2. Keep going, Melody! You totally got this! :D:D

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    3. That's wonderful, Melody!! :D You can do it!! :D

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    4. Go Melody!! You can do this!! :D

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  5. Yesterday my total was 1, 677. :):)

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    1. Great job, Melissa! :D

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  6. I wound up on another trip. Lol. But my total for the week so far is about 3K.

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    1. That's really good!! :)

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  7. I wrote a little over 4500 words yesterday, and met my planning goal. I'm pretty happy about that.

    I don't know if Athelas or I will be able to get any writing done today, though, because we woke up to a power outage. Yay.

    Have fun, y'all, and write a lot. :-) Ganbatte Kudasai!

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    1. Wow, Caiti! That is FANTASTIC!!! :D Great work. :)

      Ah man . . . I'm very sorry to hear that. :( I was looking forward to chatting some more and writing with you today. I had your comment from yesterday all copied and ready to transfer to here. :) But hopefully you'll get power back soon! :) Going without it is no fun.

      Have a blessed day, Caiti!

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    2. Thanks for the well-wishes, Patience! We got power back a few minutes ago (which is a HUGE relief, as it was looking to be out for a while). God is good. :-)

      And I look forward to conversing, and warring, with you today. :)

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    3. Oh YAY! I'm glad the power is back :)

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    4. Oh, praise the Lord, Caiti!! :D That's wonderful, and I'm so glad you got it back. :) :)

      Aw, thanks! And same here. :D

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  8. I just reached 18k on my WIP, Worlds Away!

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    1. Yay, Emily! That's awesome, and congrats!! :D How's it going? :)

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    2. Very well! I still have quite a bit to transfer from my book to my computer, and then I'll add the other things that I've typed up for the word war, and then I'll definetly have more than 20k. I'll let you know how much after I get it all typed up! :D

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    3. So glad to hear that, Emily! :) How awesome!! :D Yes, definitely let me know! :)

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    4. Sorry I didn't reply to your comment! Our power went out before lunch, and just came back on. :)

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  9. Yesterday I finished editing Chapter 7 of my novel, so I'm right on target. :) Yay!! And with Word Wars, was able to get a few hundred words down of a snippet for another novel. Thanks, guys!! :D Today, I'm pushing myself a little more - my goal's to edit two chapters of my novel, so I can make it to Chapter 10 before the Word War ends. :)

    This has been so awesome!! You all are doing fantastic!! :D

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    1. Thank you, Katheline! :)

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    2. Great job! Congratulations on your progress. :-D

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    3. Thanks, Caiti! :D I answered your comment from yesterday down below. :)

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  10. Started my day with 648 words written on my phone while I was still all comfy in bed. Day 4 of the word war is off to a good start!

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    1. That's wonderful, Mrs. Williamson! :) Best wishes for your writing today!! :)

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    2. Because I don't want to say practically the same thing Patience said, I'll just say I second Patience! =D

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    3. I am so amazed at how much you write each day. The amount of words that you get in on a blah day is more than the amount that I get in on an amazing day. Good luck on the rest of your writing for the day!

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    4. How on earth do you write that much on your phone??? I barley have the patience to write a paragraph on there.

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    5. I do most of my writing and about everything online on my iPad mini.

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    6. I'm with Mrs. Morrill...LOL, it's so annoying trying to type on touch screen keyboards.

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  11. I'm hoping to get a lot of writing done today...the only problem is that I'm reading a book too, which tends to take priority over writing.

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  12. Got in 2008 words between last night and this morning! :)

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  13. I've been having trouble writing at the moment so I've only got 9426 words in the whole week so far.

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  14. We all have blah days, Jill. I know you'll return the favor and push me through my next one, because you certainly have before!

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  15. Good morning! My goal today is only going to be 1k. Anyone want to word war? :)

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    1. I would! If you are still on...

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    2. You can do it, Katheline! :D Is that for your short story then? :)

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    3. I just saw this post. It's not particularly for my novel or short story, although I'm more in the mood to work on my short story. :P

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  16. I did it! I hit my goal of 50k for the month! YES!

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    1. AWESOME! You're a super writer xD

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    2. That's an astounding amount of words to write in less than one month! Great job!

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    3. Bravo, Melody!! That's awesome!! :D Fantastic work!

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  17. 7,513 during the word wars so far. I'm so close to getting my novel done... Only a couple thousand more words!

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    1. Awesome! By the way, I'm up for that word war if you're still on! :D Sorry, I really do disappear a lot. :P

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    2. Hehe, really, it's no problem. I do too :D

      I always like 10 minute ones, but if you're attached to another time... Please do say so!

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    3. 10 minutes sounds good to me! At :35?

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    4. I got really distracted, but I got 145 words. Good job! :)

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    5. Awesome :) Would you like to do another 10 minute one starting at the :50?

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    6. I have to go now! :/ Sorry! Hopefully I'll be able to get back on later.

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    7. 210. I stopped a minute early. I just killed a character, and am not excited about it. *cries and hides in a corner*

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    8. I got 435 words. How did you guys do?

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    9. Nice job, Ana. I have to go now, it was nice word warring with you!

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    10. That's okay, Katheline. I hope to word war with you later! Oh, Katie. That's horrible. I had to kill a character yesterday for the first time, and I finally understood the feeling that other writers get when they have to kill a character that they really like.

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    11. Good job! It was nice word warring with you too!

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  18. I just got back from my first cross country practice of the day ( I have another one in the afternoon) and I'm ready to start word warring. The funny thing is, I actually thought of the idea for this WIP when I was running about a year ago. I have to write 1,507 more words on my WIP to win Camp NaNoWriMo, and I aim to do that today. I'm not quite done with my novel yet, but it'll be about 50k when I reach my Camp NaNo goal.

    So, is anyone up for a ten or fifteen minute word war?

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    1. Katheline and I might do another 10 minute one right above this comment...

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    2. Okay. I'm in, then.

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  19. To continue the conversation, Caiti . . . :)

    "I've really enjoyed chatting with you, too, Patience! I'm not entirely sure how long I've been writing. I remember writing a little story in a self-made book when I was younger than seven, and I remember a few other stories in the following years, but I did not start writing seriously until about nine years ago. Since then, I've improved a LOT (you know that feeling you get when looking back at old writing? ;-) ), but I still have quite a ways to go, I think. I've never yet finished a novel, though. I have a problem with perseverance. How about you, Patience? How long have you been writing?" - Caiti

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    1. Thank you for sharing a bit of your writing journey with me, Caiti! :) I always love hearing how people started writing. Oh, that's wonderful - especially that you've been writing for nine years! :D I'm sure you've learned a lot since then. :)

      Hopefully you'll finish a novel soon! :D I know you can do it, Caiti. :)

      *smiles* And I definitely know what you mean about looking back at old writing! ;) Sometimes I cringe or laugh at things I wrote a while ago. :P What's even more crazy, is that I thought it was so awesome and even publishable back then. ;)

      Thank you! Well, I've been writing for around six years, though I wrote a few little stories before that. :) I've been writing a lot in the past few years. :)

      Have you had the opportunity to read many books on writing? :)

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    2. I love looking back at my old writing to see laugh at it and to see how much I improved. I used to hate looking at my old writing, and I would rip out and throw away anything that I thought was bad. Fortunately, I soon realized that I was making a mistake by throwing my old writing out, and now I keep everything so I can look back at it. I did the TWCT blog chain this month and I wrote about throwing away old writing in my blog post for the chain. I feel like I should be proud of my old writing, no matter how bad it is compared to my current writing, because I was proud when I wrote it. Also, I should be proud that I improved so much.

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    3. Thank you for sharing too, Ana! :D That's a really great point there. Those poor old stories and writing are still a part of our journey, aren't they? :) How long have you been writing, Ana? What's your current novel about? :)

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    4. I think I've been writing stories, poems and essays since I first could write. I have lots of journals from school, but the oldest journal that I started by myself was started when I was 6. I was looking back on my writing from that journal, and I saw that I purposefully filled my writing with errors so that I could go back in with a colored pencil and use all of those fancy proofreading symbols to edit my work. That gave me a good laugh.

      I've been working on my current novel, which is also my first novel, on and off for a little bit less than a year now. I'm so close to finishing it! It's about a girl that goes on a mission in space. Her mission is to go to a planet and retrieve a box that is said to hold the secret to winning the war raging between the planets. However, along the way to the box, she gets sucked into another planet and learns that there is something shady going on with the mission. She has to find out what's going on and also get back home in time.

      What's your current novel about?

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    5. I have not read many books on writing, Patience; only two that I can think of ("Writing for the Soul" by Jerry Jenkins, and "The Idiots Guide to Getting Published"— An apt title, that. ;-D). However, I have read many, many, many articles, and watched a few classes. I remember going through a box of old magazines about eight years ago and finding a couple of old issues of Writer's Digest— Those were the first writing articles I read. (Come to think of it, I don't know why we had them at all; neither of my parents were writers, or even vaguely interested in writing, to the best of my knowledge).

      Ana, that is a good point about it being a mistake to throw away all writing— I learned the hard way that it's best to save EVERYTHING, and I think I have more documents of cut lines than I do of final product. :) (Your novel sounds awesome, by the way!)

      Patience, you said that you used to think your old writing was publishable; it's funny, because recently I got the first book in a very popular series, and realized the writing style, the choice of scenes, the setting and basic idea, and the characters, were nearly identical to my first attempt at a novel (which is not at ALL well-written). So you never know, your early writing may have been publishable. :)

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    6. That's great, Ana! :) Journals are a great thing to keep too. :) Just a little difficult at times perhaps to be diligent with them. ;) And that's very funny about the errors! *smiles* They are neat, aren't they? ;)

      Your novel sounds very interesting! :) What a creative idea and plot. :) Great job! And that's awesome that you're close to finishing it! :D

      Thanks! The novel I'm currently editing is actually the first of a series of four:

      Dreams Along the Shore chronicles the life of Frances Julia Kennard, a young woman who is bent on turning her dreams into reality, even if it costs her everything. She and her twin sister, Louisa, are passionate about their writing, and both dream of being famous writers and living in a cozy cottage together as old writer maids. But when death appears on the doorstep, the glass of Frances’ dreams come crashing down, and she in vain tries to put them back together. Yet life continues to slip through her fingers. Her father – who never seemed to care about her – brings a new wife to the home, and Frances, who has been in charge for many years in the father’s absence, resents the selfish widow. Besides that, her writings keep being rejected, and when a young woman bursts into Frances life and claims her as step-sister, it is only the beginning of the ways in which God works to bring Frances to Himself.

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    7. I've heard of those books, Caiti. :) Were they helpful to you? And that's wonderful on the classes and things. :) Oh, that is funny and interesting! :) That's true . . . But I'm pretty excited about the series I'm working on. :) And the novel before that may be publishable after some serious rewriting (it was set on/around the Titanic).

      Have you done NaNo before, Caiti? :)

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  20. Is anyone up for a ten minute word war?

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  21. And I'm hopping on over to edits for a bit. :) Keep up the great work, guys!! :D Hopefully I can do some Word Wars a little later. :)

    (patiencebledsoe AT calicoacres DOT com) :)

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    1. So . . . I came to a place in my edits that I need to research for a funeral in 1908. Before I move on, that is. ;) And a question also arose with this chapter that I need to pray/ponder for an answer to it. In the meantime, I'll work on some outlining. :)

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  22. Can anyone do a ten minute word war?

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    1. I can! How about starting at the :15?

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    2. I didn't see your comment until now, so I'll just write for ten minutes and come back when I'm done.

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    3. I got 325 words. How did you do?

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    4. I got 339 words. How did you do?

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    5. Great job! It was really close!

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  23. I've gotten 2,805 words written this morning. Thank you for doing this Jill it's awesome!

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    1. Evan, I can war with you, if you want

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    2. Ok! Can tou wait a sec so I can open up my story on Google Drive.

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    3. Okay, tell me when you're ready.

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    4. Got Google Drive open and ready to word war if you want to.

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    5. Is :35 to :55 good with you?

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    6. Ok! That leaves me 2 minutes beforehand to get a drink

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    8. Took me five minutes or so to add up how may words i got.

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    9. Can you do a five minute WW?

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    10. No more like it 10 minutes. I currantly in the past two days have gotten 418 words done. I want to get 500 before i log off

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    11. One more word war would get me 500 words

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    12. Whoops, sorry I missed you. If you still want, I can do one of whatever length you want.

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    13. I want to do a ten minute one that starts at 2:15 which is un three minutes

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    14. I gotta go, but thank you for both of the wars! They were quite helpful.

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    15. I made it past the 500 mark and now will go offline. Promised dad i would mow lawn

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  24. My goal for today is to at least finish the chapter I am working on. Then I can enjoy my family who is coming to visit tonight and tomorrow.

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    1. Elisabeth, Evan and I are warring in an above comment. You can join us, we're going from :35 to :55.

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    2. I'm wwing with Lydia D you can join if you want

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  25. Who wants to do a 5-10 minute word war?

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    1. Evan and I are doing one from :15 to :25 in about a minute. You can join!

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  26. I wrote 3220 words yesterday! I hope to do lots today too!

    KEEP GOING Y'ALL! :D
    -Rebekah / The Princess of Dol Amroth

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  27. Would anyone like to word war?

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    1. I'll do a ten minute one with you if you're still on. How about at :50?

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    2. Sorry. My Internet conked out. I'll just write for ten minutes and return back.

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    3. Will wait till thus word war is over then i want to word war

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    4. Ok. I wrote 250 words, finishing a chapter :)

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    5. When youre don wanna do another word war?

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    6. Sure, I can do another one.

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    7. I got 367 words. Good job, Morgan. I'm not sure if you saw my comment explaining this yesterday, but I forgot to keep on adding chapters awhile back, so I have a chapter 6 that is currently about 40k long. Oops! No more finishing chapters for me until I edit my WIP, I guess.

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    8. @morgan: followed your blog

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    9. Lol! You did a wonderful job, Ana! I planned my manuscript chapter by chapter, so they are already all set up. :)

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    10. Hey morgan. I followed your blog

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    11. How old are you girls anyway? I'm 16. Its very humid outside

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    12. Thanks Evan! That means a lot to me! Do you have a blog?

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    13. Yes I have a blog. Timislove200.blogspot.com

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    14. @morgan: how many words have you gotten done this word war?

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    15. Morgan what tempature is it where you live? Its rather hot and rainy here

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    17. Hello? Morgan, wanna word war?

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    18. I like young adult novels in all genres. How many words I have written in the past few days for the word war or…? If so, I have written 5,908 along with my friend, Kaitlyn, whom I'm co-writing the novel with.

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    19. Yeah, sure. :35 for ten minutes?

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    20. Thats a LOT! I read on your blog that you live in S. Korea and your dad is in the millitary. , What is Korea like? Do they realy eat dog?

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    21. I'm trying to real 1,000 words before the word war ends

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    22. Are you ready to start? I am

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    23. I had some computer difficulties, causing my writing to be delayed, but managed to write 124 words.

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    24. How many words did you get?

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    25. Great job! I bet you'll be able to reach your goal of 1000 words in no time!

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    26. What computer are you using? I'm using my iPad Mini.

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    27. Right now I have 950 words done in the past 2 days.

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    28. That's great! Just a few more words and you'll be done!

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  28. I got stuck in the researching part for a little bit, but I'm back at it. I haven't written much, but I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things after having writer's block for a while. So I might not have many words, but I feel like I've made a lot of head way. :)

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    1. Nice! That always feels good, to get back in the writing groove :)

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    2. That's wonderful, Grace! :) And yay that writer's block is conquered. :D

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  29. I did 1539. Today was an off day for me...

    Hopefully I'll be able to pick up more steam tomorrow for the last day!

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    1. I'll be able to do a quick one. Which one's better for you, 5 or 10 min?

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    2. What about ten minutes, at the :57?

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    3. When do you want it to start?

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    4. That leaves me just enough time to get something to eat

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    5. Sorry, I've got to go :( I got a sentence done. It was nice warring with you!

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    6. Morgan: Oh, okay. Good bye!

      I got 250. *winces* I was distracted for a large portion of the time...

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    7. Finished with 94 words. Overall i now have 1,044 words yay! I gtg. Bye

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    8. Well done. :) ...Okay. Good bye.

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    9. Yes, for a little bit. I just had to go help my sisters with something. But I'll have to leave soon :(

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