Despite having lost a week of writing time while gallavanting around Prague, I made my word count goal for August! *does the happy dance* The entire experience, of connecting with other authors via the #wipmarathon hashtag on Twitter and being encouraged to reach my writing goals, has been a tremendous one, one I am sad to be saying goodbye to. It is my sincere hope that we can keep the hashtag going and continue to support and encourage one another as we write towards our various authorly goals.
A huge thank you to Ifeoma Dennis for putting this all together! She’s made a huge difference to me and so many other authors this month. I can’t even begin to find the words to thank her!
So here’s my last check-in for the August WIP marathon…
Previous word count: 26, 902
Current word count: 30, 109!!!
Chapter count: 15
WIP Issues this week: A week’s worth of holiday and coming back only to dive straight back into work. That left my head spinning, but I still managed to sit down and write the final few thousand words required to reach my August goal. Still not sure exactly how this story will end, but that’s next week’s problem 😉
What I learnt this week in writing: It seems I struggle to write in exciting locations. I need the familiar, the mundane, in order to transport myself to the fictional realm of my story. I just could not get into the zone of my story while in Prague. An interesting but frustrating problem, and one I’m not exactly sure how to remedy.
What distracted me this week while writing: All of Prague and family and good food and castles and museums and work and catching up on email and doing laundry and coming home to my pooch and… um, actually it was a week of distractions! And I had to fight the urge to start on a Shiny New Idea that ambushed me while I was strolling down the cobbled streets of the Czech capital.
Plan After the Marathon: To finish this novel and hand it over to CPs. It’s a weird one that I’m not sure will ever find a home with a publisher, but it’s a story I wanted to write so I really want to finish it before starting on that more commercial Shiny New Idea.
Last 200 words: Last time I posted this image –
so here are the 250 words that this picture specifically inspired. I only got to write the scene this week and it is officially the last 250 words I wrote on the WIP. I’d love to hear your thoughts…
I squeeze my fist over the bone feather, the sharp edges cutting into my palm. Blood drips between my fingers as I wend my way through the roadkill garden. Shadows lengthen, a sudden twilight robbing the day of sun. The ground cracks beneath my feet, a gnarled stem of what must be mesquite cork-screwing out of the earth and showering me with dirt. The darkness thickens as gaunt trees erupt from the soil, bark hanging off smooth stems in ragged strips. The trees knit above my head, their branches laced together as I wipe wetness from my face. It’s not dirt; it’s blood.
The trees are bleeding, the tattered bark not bark at all but the remains of fur and scraps of muscle. The trunks twist and creak, ivory and smooth as… I run my fingers over the nearest tree. They’re made of bone, of gopher and jackrabbit, and even armadillo. An orchard of skeleton trees.
From the twisted boughs of what was once a coyote, a black flower grows like a tumor. The petals snap open with a spew of feathers as, from the gruesome womb, a crow fights his way free. He fixes his red gaze on me, screaming as he takes to wing. I try to retreat from the macabre forest, but with every tentative step, a fresh bead of blood drips through my fingers and new trees are born.
The crow weaves in between the boughs, cawing, beckoning me to follow. I am powerless to resist.
So there we go. August has been a phenomenal month for my writing and I couldn’t have done it without all the #wipmarathon’ers so a huge thank you to each and every one of you!
How did your August go? Anyone looking for a CP?
