Reaching for Targets...

Word count targets...

Well my mini target of a minimum 500 words a week on my work in progress - which I started in January - has been working really well and even on difficult weeks I'm exceeding that target.
In fact this month I almost managed 5,000 words, but have fallen a little short by less than 250 words.

I'll be continuing the minimum word count each week, but my new challenge will be to write 5,000 words in March.

I'm now at a stage where not only am I discovering information about my heroine that I didn't foresee when I was doing my character sheets last year, but elements within specific chapters (that I had outlined) have needed shifting around a little too.

When the idea for the novella first came to me all those years ago, I wrote two different scenes, both involving my heroine Sarah, and having written one of those two scenes earlier this month, and reached the other scene today, I know I must find those original pieces- they captured something that I can't grasp now, but know is needed for these scenes.

So I'll be looking through old floppy disks this weekend- I have a plug-in floppy drive fortunately- and searching DVDs for the elusive words...

There's no more school/college holidays until Easter, so I have just under 4 undisturbed weeks to reach my new target...

Do you find setting yourself targets a help, or a hindrance?


Image courtesy of Vaximilian and http://freedigitalphotos.net

Characters That Start Talking to You...

It's very useful when your characters talk to you; reveal information about themselves, or other people, even tell you what they thought about the behaviour of another character.

 As long as they don't do it at the wrong time...

The wrong time being: when you're in a room full of people; it's noisy; you don't have a pen or pencil, or any paper; without a recording device you can spill their burst of thoughts into...

Then there's when you're in the shower and you're washing your hair- yes, Jago did that- he's my very attractive support character from my Dorset novel- then he waited until I was almost dressed and had started cleaning my teeth... :-)

A couple of writer friends confirmed this issue the other day. One mentioned the bathroom scenario, while the other despaired over characters talking at her while she was trying to concentrate on cooking a meal.

Now mine used to interrupt during cooking, but I just went and got a pen and notebook and started writing. I think that annoyed them...

So whether relaxing or creating, a character will grab the opportunity to break through and start whispering in your ear, or looking over your shoulder as they can't wait any longer to give you the details of something that happened in their past, which explains something else that didn't make sense previously, but now you know why you wrote it into the story...

Then they'll slip back into the mists, or in my case behind the wispy curtain, without so much as a see you later...

It's all to do with the writer's subconscious of course.

Everything under construction goes there. The ideas that have been triggered by an image, or an over- heard conversation. An incident observed, or noticed without consciously being aware of it.

It will synergise while normal everyday life goes on, and then when you sit down at the keyboard it all comes together. The plot problem that you thought couldn't be resolved, turns out to have a solution after all.

And most importantly the subconscious keeps the writer sane- well sort of... :-)

So, do your characters choose inconvenient moments to pop in to your conscious, or is it a specific place that brings them out?