National Novel Editing Month update, week 1

But first! A scheduling update, as promised.

I said that I’d be adjusting the Kelworth Files schedule, and the fact that I’m not doing a Crusader spotlight tonight is evidence of that. I’ve finished off another series, “Blog the Cat” screenwriting, and there’s a few short features that I want to start for March, and a scheduling conflict with Wednesdays. So, here’s what the rundown looks like for the next few weeks, before A to Z hits and leaves the entire blog a mash of Frenzied chaos…

Nanoedmo updates will be Mondays, as the month of March started on a Tuesday and thus each week ends on Monday, so I can do roundups for week 1, 2, 3, and so on.

Similarly Script Frenzy preparation will be covered on Fridays, as I can do ‘3 weeks until Script Frenzy is here’, ‘2 weeks…’ etcetera, since the 1st of April will be a Friday.

The ‘Wizard of Mars’ chapter reviews will be staying on Wednesday for this week, and then moving to Sunday, since there are two upcoming blogfests that are scheduled for Wednesdays. (I suppose that Sundays will also leave me free to continue doing reviews in April without needing to worry about alphabet letters, if I have the energy to, otherwise it may go on hiatus until May.) Do stay tuned to A wizard of Mars, as some very interesting things are coming up in the next few chapters!

In light of all of this,  the Crusader spotlight feature will be moving to Tuesday. It looks like off-topic Thursday is staying put, and sharing exercises moving to Saturday, though either of them might get bumped in favor of Crusader business.

Okay, with all of that explained, let’s get to Nanoedmo.

A little background for anybody who’s not familiar. National Novel Editing Month is a spinoff of Nanowrimo, a group challenge to complete 50 hours of editing, revision, proofreading, or otherwise improving your existing writing within the month of March. It’s a little bit lower-key and less social than a lot of the other spinoffs out there, but I have participated for several years running at this point, just because I think it’s a nice excuse to take a break from writing new stuff and really concentrate hard on editing.

I do also feel as if concentrating purely on hours spent as a measure of editing progress can be two-edged. On the one hand, yes, editing does take time and in general there are no shortcuts. On the other, it’s easy to either become discouraged with the prospect of so many hours stretching ahead of you, or go the other way, keep the clock running but not really focus your attention on what needs to be done, leaving you with your 50 hours on March 31st but little to show for it.

My own compromise since last year was to keep track of my hours, but also maintain a growing list of what I’ve accomplished in Edmo. Again, this can be a positive change from the long to-do lists that I maintain in other months, that I gradually cross things off on.

So, how am I doing in Edmo at the end of week 1? Not horrible, but not that great yet. My time log is at 9 hours and 43 minutes, which is at least an hour shy of where I should be according to my spreadsheet, but that’s not too bad. And what I’ve accomplished so far:

1. Completed 2 critiques for critters.org
2. Read 60 pages (out of approx 100) for critique of ‘The Chosen’ novel manuscript
3. Prepared a new draft of ‘The Landing’ to share at Hamilton Writers and get further notes on before submitting to Odyssey.

Now, I don’t normally include critiquing other people’s writing as editing for Nanoedmo, but I’ve decided this year that it was allowable, because I’m just starting with the critters online workshop, and the critique of ‘The Chosen’ that I’d agreed to do back in mid-January is seriously overdue.

Many of these hours were achieved via my little eeePC netbook computer and public transit – it’s great being able to just carry the netbook around in my bag, boot it up, and get to work. Not even cold spring weather draining the battery and bright spring sunshine attempting to wash out the screen have stopped me yet!

Catch you crusaders later.