Sunday, December 7, 2008

The Semester is Almost Over and Here's Where I Stand

Due by Friday: a 20-page paper and a novella. Next Tuesday: a final exam. Before the start of next semester, my goal is to have the first draft of HS done.

Here's where I currently stand:

No translations done for this Tuesday's class yet.

3,300 words (9 1/2 pages double-spaced) done on the paper--I find it really interesting--I'm looking at the twist endings on three fairly modern retellings of fairy tales. Makes me want to write about more than just the endings, so right now the hardest part is concentrating on a portion of the story and not the whole thing.

13,377 words done on the novella. I believe the range is between 20,000 and 60,000. I feel like I may be closer to the latter by the time I'm done, there's a whole middle chunk of the story which I still need to write.

15, 700 words on the novel, HS. That's 30 pages single-spaced. Not bad, but I think the trickiest part will come when this semester is over and I try to finish this draft by January 12, when school starts up again. I should figure out the last major scenes and calculate how many pages I "ought" to write each day. Even if I don't follow that at all, sometimes the page or word count just helps me focus.

So, in order to work on the novella and novel, the analytical paper comes first. Do it and get it out of the way. I'm off.

Happy writing.

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