Challenge February 2016 Word Race! Please Post final counts by March 2nd!

Don't forget that it's a leap year, everyone. You still have roughly a day, depending on what portion of this pale blue dot you call home.

 

LAST DAY!

My muse has sputtered and died (my brain is currently going SHAVIT! SHAVIT! EVERYTHING YOU WRITE OR EVEN THINK OF IS SHAVIT!). So I'm thinking my final count is going to be 10279.

 

I spent my weekend mostly cutting words rather than writing new ones. My final count is 24,092.

 

For February, 15,175.

Something that amazes me on this site (and I just had this conversation in a pm with someone) is how one person can write multiple stories at a time, especially when those stories are all with different characters and on disparate topics. I have NEVER been able to do that. I focus on one story at a time and block out everything that might compete with it until it's finished. Maybe this is the wrong place, but I'm very curious how multi-story writers don't go nuts with unfinished tales!

 

Outlining the diaries and the 50 titles challenge took up most of the words for this month and gives me a grip on them.

 

^^
Earlybird Obiwan, so you're also an outliner? Truly, I find more fascinating things on this site every day. I never realized how many people create outlines before they write.
@earlybird-obiwan

 

I can't outline worth crap.

 

My outlines tend to be very basic. Like "one word per chapter to jog my memory" basic. But I like to work on 2 fics at a time. If my muse is being a butt about one story, I can swap to the other, still get my 'calming fic' time in, then return to the other when my mind has had a break and cleared itself of frustrations.

 

I allow myself to work on as many things as I want to at the same time - whether this is work or a hobby. Naturally, this ends with numerous scheduling conflicts, but in the case of fanfic, the worst that can happen is not updating it for a couple of months, which happened to err...both of my 2015 longfics at some point. Then again, if one thing's stuck, the may thrive, so this approach has a positive side, too.

As for the results... My final word count is 38471.

 

Well, now that I know that RP posts as well as Story segments are counted towards your final score, I'm a bit busy counting!

 

13579

Same here, on paper. I can outline sometimes in my head, but generally, I either think about things, or shoot from the cuff. Usually no outlining or planning with my RP posts.

I don't know if the term counts for designing spaceship decks and stuff, but I do need to know the environment around my character.

 

I don't mean I don't do any planning. I take notes and keep them for reference. But I can't outline a story. If I do, my brain goes "Okay, story's told, let's do something else now!" I keep 99% of it in my head as I'm writing. It gets a wee bit confusing when I'm writing more than one at a time, as I'm doing now (and they all take place at roughly the same time).

I'm going to try to break 60k before midnight. Two and a half hours to go and I'm at 58k.

 

Best of luck with that, DS.

 

Argh, the PC profile that has almost all of my word count is locked for the night! I was still counting, too...

 

Oh, no! Well, the word count isn't due til March 2, so you've still got time to tally it up.

 

I found that doing this 50 word prompt thing really helped get me going. They're connected, in the same story, but I don't have to fill in every detail. I just write vignettes that are part of a larger whole.

 

Final word count is the same as last posted number.

 

Final word count, with two minutes to midnight: 60,748

 

Final word count: non-zero, but too low for prizes. All I got done were two RPG posts, and I'm too lazy to go find them to calculate a word count. I know it's well below the prize threshold, though.

 

Maybe next month!

 

I kinda did a mad-dash to midnight on my mindless fic and made it to 10792. I'm fairly happy with it.

I'm going to wait till after March 2nd to do colours and awards. I want to make sure everyone has a chance to post final counts. But with so many people getting colours, I'm going to have to do it all at once. Normally I do like to make sure everyone has a chance to enjoy their colours, but it's not going to be feasible for me this time around, so I will try to have the PM regarding colours out the afternoon of the 3rd.

 

Final count is 9617. So close and yet so far.

 

Thanks everyone for your thoughts on outlining. I just have this overwhelming curiosity about other people's writing process. It's neat To get a glimpse at how other people approach their stories. Thanks again.