Improvements and Goals

Hello again,

For the past five months, I've been writing in drafting cycles. I'm still in the first cycle. Meaning I've only written first drafts and haven't moved onto second drafts.

Book One draft one - Done
Book Two draft one- Done
Book three draft one- Work in Progress
Book One draft two- Hasn't begun

Today I wrote over two thousand words. When I was done, I looked at the words written and pages completed. I noticed my word count- for my half-finished draft- was similar to that of my completed first drafts. Going through the two first drafts that I've written in the last few months, I collected data I considered relevant. Word count, chapters, pages, and time writing.

 

Data	Book One	Book Two	Book Three (incomplete)
Word Count	36727	27287	27722
Chapters	20	14	14 (out of 31)
Pages	146	108	117
Time	40.5 hours	46.7 hours	38 hours

Something that I noticed is while my time writing hasn't improved. The ability to turn my basic plot line details into a full chapter has improved tremendously. My plot lines are broken down by chapters.

Chapter One- Annie is in the park. She meets Daniel.
Chapter Two- She's troubled by the darkness surrounding Daniel. Issues with Annie's family increase.
Chapter Three- Annie sees Daniel again. She's still troubled by the darkness, but inexplicably drawn to him.

Sometimes I have more details sometimes I just have two words. I have to take that and turn it into 2,000 to 3,000 words. Which is why I'm proud of myself. I'm strengthening my imagination and building myself into the writer I aspire to be. I was telling this all to my best friend and faithful supporter Marie. She also keeps me honest about keeping to my writing goals. I was telling her about this and what I'd have to do in the second drafts to get my word count to where I want it. Explaining that one day I want to be able to do what I do now in two or three drafts and be able to do it in one. It would be amazing. To build a world, characters, have sensory details, and the main plot line done in one draft.

Now that ladies and gentlemen is the dream. Maybe a bit lofty but, since I'm already aiming for the improbable. Let's go for the impossible.

Thanks for reading RawLitCom; True Confessions of an Aspiring Author.