Well, the first weekly update post was a little early, while this one is a little late due to a crazy busy Saturday with family. But it’s close enough.
Now two weeks into my #TwitterFiction project, I am pleased to say that it’s going really well! I managed to complete the first chapter on Tuesday. The second chapter has been travelling a little more slowly, but that’s okay.
I have been able to write 7 – 10 segments each day, which equates to around 300 – 400 words a day. This may not sound like much, but speed is not my most important metric here. It’s making progress on a daily basis, and since I can’t go back and edit afterward according to the rules of the exercise, making sure that each segment is well written and fits into its correct place in the story.
One of the most important aspects of this project was to see if I could find continuity in the story and a routine that worked for me to be able to write around my other commitments of work and family. The key point of this is consistency. I wanted to establish a common amount of writing each day, rather than have a day full of success, then a week of no progress whatsoever. To me, it is far more important to make that steady, consistent progress.
This might seem counter-intuitive; why would I hold myself back from writing if I have the ideas ready to go? The simple reason is to make sure that the idea is fully formed before committing it to paper (or disk). Each element needs to be more planned, so letting it stew in my brain for a while longer ensures that I don’t write something that I look at later and go, “Eww, that didn’t work at all.” I can put my hand on my heart, look at everything I’ve written so far, and
Really, my biggest concern was that my posting each segment on Twitter as I wrote the story would annoy members of the writing community. Me being me, I decided to run a poll on Twitter to get feedback, just in case. I received overwhelming support for continuing with my #TwitterFiction project, so continue it will!