February Round-up

[cjmarlowe]

All right, then. In February I wrote 75,493 words, and posted 14 ficlets and stories in four fandoms, ranging between roughly 900 and 9000 words, most again falling between 1000 and 2000 words. Most of those words were on stories yet to be posted (one of them today if I stop procrastinating), and I also did turn in a big bang draft early in the month.

I set myself a writing goal of 2000 words a day for this month, to see if I could stick to it. That was 2000 words minimum every single day, no "Oh, I wrote 2500 words yesterday so I can do only 1500 today." It was 2000+ words every day no matter what came before. And I did it. I was thinking about upping it to 2500 this month, but I think I'm going to stick to 2000 for now and see how that goes.

Also, movies and books, February 2010:

Men In Black
Boogie Nights
The Cutting Edge (yes, inspired by Olympic figure skating)
Center Stage
Star Trek
And also:
X-files - Season 3
X-files - Season 4 (and my God, S4 really is as good as I remember it being. Can't wait to get through S5.)

I'm just not watching as many movies as I did last year, but if you factor in the X-Files rewatch and Olympic coverage, plus my regular television (download) habits, there's still excessive video in my life.

And then for books, this month I read:

Philippa Gregory - The Other Boleyn Girl
- I don't know why I had it in my head this was going to be dense; it was a light, quick and entertaining read.

Jeff Carlson - Plague Year
- I think I liked this, but at the same time I have some mixed feelings. I'm not sure the way it was cut together was the most effective option, and here's the thing - I think it's interesting the way he explored the dark places in us and the brutality of humanity, but the fact is that no one in this novel liked anyone else, and that makes it a lot harder to identify with any of them.

Gary Phillips and Christopher Chambers, Ed. - The Darker Mask: Heroes From The Shadows
- I started reading this over a year ago, on a flight home for Christmas, and the thing about short story books is they're easy to put down and come back to a long time later. Overall I thought the collection was kind of uneven but it opens and closes very strong, two of my three favourites are the opening and closing stories - "Dream Knights" and "Housework" - and then in between I really liked "Henchman", among others. I really loved the premise of this collection, and I definitely recommend it.

It was my goal this month to go back to books I was halfway through and finish them, and to that end I made a conspicuous stack of books with bookmarks in them, but in the end only got through the one.

Okay, back to writing now.

Comments

[ella-bane.livejournal.com]

CJ, that's an incredible word count!

[cjmarlowe.livejournal.com]

I'm at about 142,000 for the year so far. But bear in mind, they aren't all good words. :D

[ella-bane.livejournal.com]

Still! That's pretty awesome. I'd love to know how you do it.

[ella-bane.livejournal.com]

Because of this post, I wrote 1500 words last night. I gave myself the job. *crosses fingers* Here's hoping it sticks, and that at least some of the words are good ones. :D

[cjmarlowe.livejournal.com]

OMG dude, how fantastic is that? :DDD

[rhythmsextion]

YOU MAKE ME FEEL SO INADEQUATE.

[cjmarlowe.livejournal.com]

I HAVE NO JOB. MY ENTIRE LIFE IS ONE OF FEELING INADEQUATE RIGHT NOW.

[rhythmsextion]

Writing IS your job! So there!

[cjmarlowe.livejournal.com]

If only it came with bucketloads of $$$. Though, that said, I did in fact make writing my job this month, with set working hours and everything. It wasn't entirely successful, but it's a start.

[rhythmsextion]

That's seriously kind of awesome, actually. And admirable. I wish I had that kind of self discipline.

[risti.livejournal.com]

And here I'm still kind of shocked that since starting to write in the AI fandom (just over five weeks ago now) I've managed to write over 15k... Congrats on exceeding your goal! I've certainly enjoyed reading the fic that's resulted from that...

And also, I totally watched The Cutting Edge this month too. (and I just finished watching the first two Mighty Ducks movies, because apparently the biggest impact these Olympics have had on me was to get me to re-watch cheesy skating movies from the 90's.)

[cjmarlowe.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know exactly what you mean! When I first started in the fandom I was so inspired I wrote like a madwoman for the first time in ages. :D

And man, if i actually owned the Mighty Ducks movies I bet I would have watched them too. >.>

[risti.livejournal.com]

I downloaded it, because I had the kind of surreal experience of watching the gold medal game yesterday (I never watch hockey) while chatting with a couple of people online, and the whole thing somehow turned into a discussion about how Everything We Know About Hockey We Learned From That Movie. (Except, you know, for the stuff you're born with as a Canadian...)

[yuppielawyer.livejournal.com]

That's a lot of words. I can't wait to read more of them. And I am insanely jealous of your discipline.

[cjmarlowe.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, my designated writing time is more spent thinking about writing than actually writing most days. I keep thinking about how much more I could do with stronger willpower. :)

[tagalongcookies.livejournal.com]

UNF your wordcount ;)

[cjmarlowe.livejournal.com]

:DD And one of these days some of it will actually get posted.