{"id":1800,"date":"2019-04-01T11:08:12","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T16:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/?p=1800"},"modified":"2019-04-01T11:08:14","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T16:08:14","slug":"april-2019-updates-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/april-2019-updates-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"April 2019 Updates, Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Happy belated Persian New Year<\/a> to all! :)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Very often it\u2019s after I\u2019ve declared a section \u201cdone\u201d that I start getting the flood of ideas I wish I\u2019d gotten when I was first drafting the thing. \u201cHey, wouldn\u2019t it be better if [x] happened instead?!\u201d Yes, yes it would. I usually go back and make those changes immediately, especially if they precipitate changes that will carry forward through the rest of the manuscript. I also make sure to correct any and all inconsistencies I find before returning to normal drafting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lots of writing advice says you should never<\/em> go back, just plow ahead until you have a finished (and seriously flawed) draft, but that doesn\u2019t work for me. I simply cannot move forward knowing there are huge unresolved plot-holes somewhere behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might wonder: have I ever made these sorts of mid-stream edits and later regretted it? I would have to say, almost never. For writing, I use a software program called Scrivener, which has a \u201csnapshot\u201d feature. I can capture a version of any scene before I make major changes to it, and revert to the previous version at any time, if necessary. Even though I\u2019ve taken hundreds of snapshots throughout the years, I\u2019ve only skimmed through them a few times, and that was usually to pull out phrasing\/dialogue that I wanted to use elsewhere in the manuscript. I honestly can\u2019t remember a time when I\u2019ve ever reverted a scene to an older version wholesale. So when I backtrack, it may not feel<\/em> like progress, but it’s almost never time wasted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing Updates<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you can probably tell by now, I did a teensy bit of backtracking this month on the draft of Book 3, but the manuscript is that much stronger for it. I got halfway into Chapter 13, and am now around 61,000 words. I\u2019m thinking I can wrap things up somewhere between the 80-100K mark. That will mean that half of what I originally intended for Book 3 will be Book 4 instead! LOL That\u2019s exactly<\/em> what happened with the first two books. I tend to assume I can fit WAY more stuff into one book than is realistic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Current Goals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well-rounded Latin practice.<\/strong> I continue to study on my own, and our Latin speaking group is expanding to include new people. Since they\u2019re even less practiced than I am (!), that means we\u2019re using English by default now, and rehearsing the most basic sentences imaginable. It feels like a step backward, but I\u2019ll be patient for a few more weeks and see what happens. I\u2019m hoping we get back up to 99% Latin for our discussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being a good Stoic.<\/strong> The past few weeks, I got serious about purging things in my house that I haven\u2019t actually been using and hardly even remember I owned. A lot of it had sentimental value, and other things were more wishfully held onto (\u201cI\u2019ll get back into that hobby someday!\u201d). I\u2019m donating and recycling as much of it as possible. It\u2019s a big weight off my shoulders to free myself of these obligations, and it has the added benefit of clearing out the attic. We\u2019ll be able to re-insulate up there and bring down our energy costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listening to German.<\/strong> I didn\u2019t do as much German practice as I hoped this month, but there\u2019s always next month. Also, by coincidence, a lot of the people in the Latin group happen to speak German in some capacity. Maybe if we can\u2019t figure out how to say something in Latin, we can fall back to saying it in German instead? I\u2019ll have to see what the others think of that idea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Civic engagement.<\/strong> I\u2019ll be helping out at voter registration events in April and May. I really hope that one day this becomes moot if\/when automatic voter registration is enacted, but in the meantime, I\u2019m gonna register everyone I can!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will also be traveling to upstate New York at the end of next month, so my next post may be delayed a bit. Regardless, I hope you have a great month! :)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy belated Persian New Year to all! :) Very often it\u2019s after I\u2019ve declared a section \u201cdone\u201d that I start getting the flood of ideas I wish I\u2019d gotten when I was first drafting the thing. \u201cHey, wouldn\u2019t it be better if [x] happened instead?!\u201d Yes, yes it would. I usually go back and make those changes immediately, especially if they precipitate changes that will carry forward through the rest of the manuscript. I also make sure to correct any…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23,2,17,7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-ellis","category-advice","category-books","category-sword-and-starship","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1800"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1805,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800\/revisions\/1805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}