Camp update No 3

Camp update:

7/4/19 - 3256
8/4/19 - 2754
9/4/19 - 1167
10/4/19 - 0 (Zero. Nada. Nowt)
11/4/19 - 6456

Total words edited to date: 29,931

Yesterday was a busy day, church wise. I DID write, but at NIBS, not on the novel. So it wasn't a word-free day, just a non-novel day.

Today was a good writing day, as plans changed and I didn't get to do what I'd intended to this afternoon (the not so good bit) so I edited instead. I was also working on dialogue, and I can whizz through more of that in a session because there's usually less editing required here than on descriptions or action sections. (I think I must have a knack for dialogue - it comes easily in the first instance. It's all the rest of it that slows me down!)

I'm also very aware that I am getting close to the place I got stuck on for so long (until I wrote something really simple and passed over it for more exciting bits!) I'm fully expecting my pace to slow down noticeably then, as I'll be editing much rawer material.

Probably a good job I've already had a good day today, eh?

Camp NaNoEdMo update 2

So the 'update every day on the blog' thing isn't working... it's working out as every few days instead. But I'm still glad to be doing camp NaNoEdMo, because I've discovered that even an hour a day is enough to get anywhere between 1100 and 2500 words edited.

And it's not proving so hard to find an hour. Today I've done the hour early in the day, because we're cooking dinner for friends tonight and I need to get a lot of tidying and cleaning done before I even start going near the kitchen! More usually, I'm editing in the evening, when everyone else at home is doing their own thing.

Maybe being an almost-disciplined writer isn't completely beyond me...

Here's the update so far:
4/4/19 - 2483
5/4/19 - 1157
6/4/19 - 1902
Grand total edited so far: 16296 words.

My aim is for 45K words by the end of the month. I'm on track. Happy Squidge.

Camp update 1

I forgot to update yesterday... I had a cold and was feeling a bit rubbish, then a quarter of one of my teeth broke off. So I was not in a happy, blogging place.

Instead, I'm giving you a double update today:

2/4/19 - 1365
3/4/19 - 1533

which takes me to a grand total of 10,754 words edited.

Mind you, it's taken me this long - and the assistance of my cabin buddies on camp - to work out exactly where to update my stats on Camp NaNoWriMo. At one point I was minus 9K words!!

Onwards and upwards...

Camp NaNoEdMo and Project Black Ruby

I mentioned the other day that I'm doing Camp NaNoWriMo as Camp NaNoEdMo this month.

I'd already started working on the edit over the weekend, and I figured that I'd include those figures in the camp totals, as I'm aiming to have completed the edit of Project Black Ruby by the end of April.

So on the first day of camp, I have posted 7856 words edited. I was honest - said that that's three days' worth - and I am planning to edit something every day until I'm done, even if that goes beyond the end of the month.

In fact, I think I'll post my stats on here every day too, to prove to anyone outside of my camp cabin that I'm making progress. It's not something I've done before, but it might help to keep me motivated. Especially if you all keep encouraging me!

So, for Project Black Ruby so far:
30/3/19 - 4924
31/3/19 - 1697
1/4/19 - 1253
Total: 7856 words edited.

The End

Well, I hoped to get my first computer draft done, and it is. Still pretty rubbish in places - including where I skipped over a boring part and wrote 'She has to get to the mine again' to give me an excuse to write the more interesting action!

Now it's time to edit.

I'm doing Camp NaNoWriMo with some friends over April, but using it as Camp NaNoEdMo, because that worked well for me before.

Apparently, if I'm aiming for 45,000 words of editing, I should be editing 1500 words a day.

I got a head start, and have done around 5,000 today, a day before we're supposed to officially start, but I might not be able to do every day in April. Depends what life throws at me.

But I'm back writing. And it feels great.

Within touching distance...

After a couple of false starts, I'm within touching distance of having the book I'm working on finished.

By which, I mean it's the first draft on computer; the story bones are there, but they are going to need fleshing out and polishing up.

There are still a couple of places I need to work on - a lot - particularly as most of the action happens in a mine, which results in lots of to-ing and fro-ing between the mine and other locations. To-ing and fro-ing gets boring after a while, so I have to decide how to get the story moving without needing to describe the physical journey.

And there are plenty of places where I've added notes because I've realised something doesn't quite work in the plot...

And of course there are plenty of points where I'm not consistently in the MC's POV, where I need to be able to write the action and thoughts in such a way that my reader is completely immersed in my MC's world.

And last of all, I have to look at book one in this series, to make sure this one feels similar in style.

So yeah, within touching distance, yet still a long, LONG way off. Going in the right direction though...

Catching up on quilting

Way back last autumn, I mentioned that I was trying to complete a quilt I started the year before that, and it was taking ages to hand quilt the spirals... Well, although I didn't blog about it at the time, I got it finished in time for Christmas, and it's been on my bed for quite a while.

Here's a couple of photos of some of the details I'm particularly pleased with. Please excuse the fluff on the first photo - the cat loves to sleep on the end of the bed, and I didn't realise quite how much fluff he'd left behind til I'd taken the photo!

Me? Leave fluff? Never!

Might actually be getting the hang of neat corners! And the spirals aren't too bad either.

The purple backing/border fabric went so well with the batik strips

Since completing that one, I've also completed a third large quilt - for Squidgeling T, when he goes off to uni later this year. (He's doing a degree in 'How to be a Rock Star', aka BA in Professional Musicianship on his bass guitar). I found a lovely layer cake in denim blues and greys, and Squidgeling T asked for bright red to set them off. Here's how it ended up:

Front of quilt - the red really makes it pop!

Some of the larger layer cake squares were cut into four and edged with the red, while the rest were kept whole - then a large square and an edged square were alternated. The backing fabric - which I used to edge the quilt as well - was a beautiful denim blue, and I found a matching variegated denim and grey thread to hand stitch the quilting pattern. After the free-form spirals on the last quilt, I went very geometric again; stitched in the ditch along the main join lines, then stitched inside both the small squares and the large squares, because otherwise there'd have been far too much unquilted area between stitched points.

Back - I used up the leftover layer cake squares to add a stripe.
You can just about make out the quilting pattern on the plain blue
if you look hard...

I have to say that the border on this one is probably the best I've ever done - proper right angles and everything! I finished it yesterday evening, and it was on T's bed last night.

Cracked it on the corners!

Next project? Well, I'm going to make Squidgeling J a quilt for her bed. We found a rather nice pattern to use with a blue batik jelly roll;

Working out how many strips from each design of fabric I'd need...

Blues, aquas and pinky-purples in the mix

Imagine this pattern, repeated over and over

I also have a charm pack of very bright coloured patterns which I'd like to use to make another lap quilt, using the same pattern as above. Lap quilts are so useful when I'm sitting typing...or having a snooze on the settee when a migraine or other illness hits.

Such zingy colours!

And yes, I have realised that this isn't getting much writing done. I will get there. Eventually.