chiomawrites-blog

[chiomawrites-blog]

First week into my new job and I have managed to stick to a routine of waking up at 6am so that I can fit around a hour of writing each weekday. My target is to write 500 words in that time which I have managed to do. 

My word count for this month so far is almost 24k 

My total word count for this wip is 62k

[chiomawrites-blog]

me, having deeply fallen out of the practice of writing poetry: I can’t write any more, I am now a Talentless Hack

the voice of my 11th grade journalism/12th grade creative writing teacher who rly did know everything: if you stop writing for a while the words will build up and stagnate. to clear the water, you will have to open the dam completely, and accept the fact that what initially comes out will not be palatable

[chiomawrites-blog]

[chiomawrites-blog]

It’s… it’s okay if you’re not very good at writing? I don’t know if this is much of a controversial opinion, but you are improving, and you are consistently moving forward even if you don’t see it. Progress is largely practice-based, especially in writing, and even if editors and beta readers weren’t a thing that are actively helping you every time they give a critique (and, well, why do you think those exist in the first place? Nobody’s perfect), you would still be improving just by writing more and reading others’ writing. It’s okay if you’re not good at writing. That doesn’t mean anything about you, and it definitely doesn’t mean anything permanent.

[chiomawrites-blog]

Writer: I don’t know if anybody will like my story. I’ve never done it before. What if it’s too hard? I’m not sure of anything, I’m second-guessing it, I’m scared that it’ll turn out bad. What if I try my best and still fail? What if my idea is overdone or cliche? Would anybody even be interested in what I have to say? Me, sobbing on my knees: please… write the fuckigngbgng book… stop doubting yourself into a corner… you’ll never know how good you are until you have work to reflect upon… time is limited, and it only runs forward, so please do the same! 

[chiomawrites-blog]

Midway through the month and I’ve reached a total of 60k words in my wip. 

Managed to get another 2k down today, but it was a little difficult to complete one of the scenes. In the end I realised that I was trying to explain too much so cut a few paragraphs out, which helped with the scene’s flow. 

Starting a new job tomorrow, which I am excited about but at the same time a little sad it means I’ll have less time to focus on my writing. Still I am determined to carve at least an hour out of each weekday for my writing. 

This freaking draft is going to be finished in the next 6 weeks is2g

[chiomawrites-blog]

After 4 months of radio silence...hi again!

God it’s been ages since I’ve been on my writeblr. 

My last writing update was back in the beginning of March, which is when my writer’s block (or more accurately my writer’s indecision) really derailed my writing plans. And unconsciously I just stopped coming on here...

Between April and May I pretty much wrote nothing. I couldn’t get my story past chapters 6 & 7 because I was really unsure what direction to take with a secondary character, and his plot was really integral to the development of the story. 

But finally, after taking a step back and remembering my original plans for him back when I first conceived this character, it helped me know how to move forward. 

In June I got back into the flow of writing and ended the month with around 8k words and finally moving past chapters 6/7

And so far this month I’ve written just over 20k words!!! 

I’m so freaking happy. At the start of the month I gave myself a goal of writing at least 15k words this month, which I was sure I could do since I wasn’t working. So I also set an upper goal of 20k and I’ve already reached it less than 2 weeks into the month. 

Since I’m starting a new job next week I know I’m not going to be able to keep up my current pace, but I do hope to end the month with another 8k words written, which will take the total word count of my wip to 66,000 words. 

And then if I can write another 35k in August I should be finished with Draft 2 of my wip!!

2019 Word count breakdown

Jan- 20k 

Feb- 7k

March- 3k

April- 0

May- 0

June- 8k

July- 20k 

Total: 58k

[chiomawrites-blog]

Writing About: Pirates

The Characters and the Fiction

Tips for writing about pirates

10 Tips for writing pirate fiction

Types of pirates 1

Types of Pirates 2

Not Even Pirates Spoke Pirate

6 Absurd Pirate Myths Everyone Believes

Ten Facts About Pirates

Life

What did pirates drink? 

Pirate Life

Oh to be a Pirate

Real life pirates

Real-life pirates of the caribbean

Ten Facts About Anne Bonny and Mary Read

Historical Female Pirates

Women Pirates, Female Pirates in Story

History of Black Pirates

Raids, Not Race, Were What Mattered to Black Pirates

Wikipedia’s List of Pirates

Historic Periods

The Golden Age of Piracy

1680-1730: Pirates and Anglo-American Piracy in the Atlantic

1700-1725 The Golden Age of Piracy

Big Cities during the Golden Age

The Ships

Category: Pirate Ships

6 Famous Pirate Ships

Ship Parts (possibly flawed but very long list)

Ship Parts

Definitions of Caribbean-used Ships

Positions and Duties on Board of a Pirate Ship

Weapons and Fighting

History of Pirate Weapons

Pirate Weapons

Sword Fight and Pirates

Writing Sword Fight Scenes 101

For Writers: How to Write Sword-Fight Scenes

Books

Villains of All Nations

The Pirate Primer: Mastering the Language of Swashbucklers and Rogues

Popular Pirate Fiction Books

Websites

x The Way of The Pirates

x Historic Naval Fiction

x The Pirate King

x Swashbuckler

x Pirates & Privateers

-Alex

[chiomawrites-blog]

for all you writers out there:

donjon has tons of generators. for calendars. for demographics of a country and city. for names (both fantastical and historical) of people, nations, magics, etc.

this site lets you generate/design a city, allowing you to choose size, if you want a river or coast, walls around it, a temple, a main keep, etc.

this twitter, uncharted atlas, tweets generated maps of fantasy regions every hour.

and vulgar allows you to create a language, based on linguistic and grammatical structures!!! go international phonetic alphabet!!!

[chiomawrites-blog]

Be proud of your own art.

Listen to your own songs. Hang up your own drawings and look at them every day. Read over the best passage of your novel 16 times and admire your favourite sentence again and again.

You are your own first fan, you have created something beautiful, so enjoy it

[chiomawrites-blog]

February writing wrap-up

total word count: 7,023/30,000

So February was a bit of a mess for me writing-wise. 

i was behind my writing goal right from the start and then after the first week i got stuck 

like stuck stuck

writers’ block is no joke y’all

i rewrote chapter 6 literally 5 times and then chapter 7 a further 3 times

each time the chapters just weren’t quite right but i didn’t know what to do with them because i couldn’t quite get a grasp on how exactly i wanted to the plot to develop

i got stuck hashing out the same scenes in different ways but hating it no matter what

and my god does one get sick of their own writing/plot when they have to rewrite the chapters over and over again

but thank god for @mastery-in-procrastination who suggested a direction i could take my plot and OH MY GOD i’m finally out of my rut. From that one idea I’ve managed to plan chapters 6 - 12 and i’m really happy with them. 

I finally know how i’m going to introduce a major secondary character, I know how the friendship between them and my mc is going to work, and i know how i want to develop a major plot point.

thank you @mastery-in-procrastination you absolute babe <3 

and bring on march where i’ve set myself the goal of writing 40k. Fingers crossed that this month will be polar opposites to February

[chiomawrites-blog]

WIP Theme Tag

Thank you to the wonderful @steffi-fiction for tagging me. Love this one!

This relates to my current wip, which I’m currently writing draft 2

bold are prominent, italics are less

addiction | beauty | betrayal | change vs. tradition | chaos vs. order | circle of life| coming of age | communication | convention vs. rebellion | corruption | courage | crime and law | dangers of ignorance | darkness and light | death | desire to escape | dreams | displacement | empowerment | facing darkness | facing reality | faith vs. doubt | fall from grace | fame and fortune | family | fate | fear | fear of failure | free will | friendship | fulfillment | good vs. bad | government | greed | guilt and forgiveness | hard work | heroism | hierarchy | honesty | hope | identity crisis | immortality | independence | individual vs. society | inner vs. outer strength | innocence | injustice | isolation | knowledge vs. ignorance | life | loneliness | lost love | love | man vs. nature | manipulation | materialism | motherhood | nature | nature vs. nurture | oppression | optimism | peer pressure | poverty | power | power of words | prejudice | pride | progress| quest | racism | rebirth | relationships | religion | responsibility | revenge | sacrifice | secrets | self-awareness | self-preservation | self-reliance | sexuality | social class structure | survival | technology | temptation and destruction | time | totalitarianism | weakness | vanity | war | wealth | wisdom of experience | youth

I’m tagging @in--words @mastery-in-procrastination @she-writes-love @alienducky @surroundedbypearls @ill-write-when-im-dead and anyone else who wants to give this one a try!

WIP Theme Tag

[chiomawrites-blog]

Rules: Take a section of your WIP, however long or short, and google translate it until it’s utter nonsense.

Thank you @mastery-in-procrastination for tagging me!

I went from English to Czech to Maori to Japanese and then back to English. 

Original text is the opening of chapter one: 

Sara would never tire of moments like this: the thunderous clap of one hundred palms beating against one hundred animal-skin drums. The shock of sound that shook her teeth. The sliver of peace that followed before they struck again. And again. And again. Less and less time in between them until it completely fell away leaving the thunder to run rampant: an impatient, fervent cacophony that burst through main central grounds of the Wo’hahei clan’s village. The line of drummers dancing as they played their opening piece. Clumps of earth scattering as their bare feet slammed into the ground in time with their quickening hands.

Translated:

Sarah is never disturbed when you are in the following situation. The source of peace for the next peace where voice stops is before their game. and again. and again. Thunderstorms escape from shooting as they are getting less and less time to disappear. When they played the first part, I sang the singer's song. He scatters the earth and turns his feet to the ground with both hands at once.

--

Pretty damn beautiful if you ask me

i’m tagging @alienducky @in--words @ill-write-when-im-dead @steffi-fiction

Lost in translation

[chiomawrites-blog]

so since writing is going tits up i’m going to instead go through the backlog of tag games that i’ve got. 

at least that’s somewhat writing adjacent 

[chiomawrites-blog]

I was tagged by the lovely @ill-write-when-im-dead  to complete the last line tag. 

This is from chapter 7 of my current wip. Kinda cheating because it’s four lines but they’re all really short:

She traced her fingers over the raised skin. This thing, whatever it was, it couldn’t be evil. It had somehow come from Wen’nu. And when that Statue reached for her it did so like an ally, not like an enemy. And then it had marked her.

I’m tagging @in--words @mastery-in-procrastination @surroundedbypearls @steffi-fiction and anyone else who wants to!!

[chiomawrites-blog]

so i’m still stuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

and i’m going insane

i just have no fucking clue how to progress this story

like i have a general idea of what i want to happen

but then when i try and write it down, make it something concrete, i hate the end result

i reread the first 5 chapters and i love them, yeah they need work, but i’ms o fucking proud of them

then i get to chapter 6 and it’s just not quite right

and then i just hit a mental dead end in chapter 7

part of my feels like i should just ignore what i want to happen and just do whatever

but i can’t even do that because i have no idea what else to write

fuuuuuck i. hate. this. 

i feel like if i could only get over this one hurdle everything will just flow out

i was meant to write 30k this month but i’m still stuck around the 5k-7k mark

this is so shit. 

if anyone has any advice on writers block it’d be much appreciated.

[chiomawrites-blog]

guess who went back and reworked chapter 6 for the 6th time

this dumb bitch

though to be fair it was only the last 1000 words I reworked and i like it better, it’s made it much more plot relevant by bringing forward a big plot point in this chapter rather than wait another chapter

now i can move onto chapter 7

lool i haven’t even opened my wip yet and i’m already overcome with how much i’ve missed writing