A BRIEF INTRODUCTION: Hello there! I’m Tess, and you’re about to read an experiment of mine. The experiment is to see how long I can keep a decent log of my writing life, and to see whether that log has any entertainment value. It’s sort of like a captain’s log, but almost definitely less exciting. Hope you enjoy!
6/6/2019
Word count: 221
Turns out I didn’t have as much time this morning as I thought I would--we had to run out to meet a friend an hour earlier than my brain believed. Nevertheless, I gave myself a goal of 200 and sat down to type away furiously--and I hit 221. See, kids, the power of attainable goals!
Spent the rest of the day doing Seattle tourist things with my partner and his friend who came in from out of town. Stops included sushi, the Chihuly museum by the space needle, an adorable cat cafe in Wallingford where I met a sweet baby girl who snuggled her cute little head into my hand, followed by a quick pop up to a Starbucks on the 40th floor of Columbia Tower, dinner at the Pink Door (more fish,) a quick trip home to say hi to my own kitty and pick up some things, and then a final trip to the very top of Columbia Tower, just in time for the very end of the sunset (so about 9pm.)
I’d never been up Columbia Tower before; if you’re not intimately aware of all things Seattle, Columbia Tower is the tallest skyscraper here. The partner and I went on an architecture tour last summer, where we learned that Columbia Tower wasn’t supposed to be as large as it was. Apparently, Seattle had some ordinance restricting the base size of buildings, which should have been enough to structurally prevent anything from being built that high. But the guy who designed Columbia found a way around that by essentially building three towers together, with only one of them reaching all the way to the top (which here means the 70th floor.)
I’m not totally sure how that works, but I’ve been assured that it’s structurally sound. I’ve also been assured that after that, Seattle passed a new ordinance that directly prevents building anything past a certain height, so in theory, Columbia will remain the tallest skyscraper in Seattle indefinitely. Seems like a weird way to get revenge on the guy who skirted your laws--by making sure that his building gets to keep its tallest-ever status. But what do I know? One day the tsunami will take us all down anyway.
Seattle, folks.
I ended the day tired but happy. And excited for the day of nothing-but-writing to come!
6/7/2019
Word count: 2,344
Here the goal was a bit more ambitious, at 2,000 words, with a stretch goal of 2,500. With a final count of 2,344, I’d say today was pretty successful. (My best day ever was around 3,000, but that’s only happened twice. Some writers regularly hit 3,000 words. I’m not one.)
Powered through some exposition in chapter two and neeeearly got to the end of it, but not quite. Suspect I’ll be moving on to chapter 3 soon, though.
I’ve been using Scrivener this time around. It took some getting used to, but I do think I’ve come to like it. At a minimum, it’s got a way better price point than Word, which was always expensive and now seems even more so. Scrivener just costs a one-time $40 license fee, and you can download and try it out for 30 non-consecutive days (meaning, only the days you actually open it count against that total.) And that’s basically how I ended up using it--tried it out for free, eventually decided to pay. I’ll write all of book 3 in it before I officially make up my mind.
One thing left to figure out about Scrivener: how to insert special characters. Why did I give one of my characters a French name, anyway? Do I hate myself? Valid questions.
Anyway, glad I got done what I did. And now it’s the real weekend, so I have two more days of writing time available to me!
And I believe I’ve got a fight scene coming up.
6/8/2019
Word count: 1,856
Got to the end of chapter 2! Think I left it in a nice what’s-gonna-happen-next kinda place. Then switched gears entirely. Always fun.
Today was a bit of an odd work day. Got about 700 words done in the morning, which is kind of unusual for me. I’m not a morning person. Even if I work at it real hard, usually the earliest I ever manage to start writing is 11:00am. But maybe I had some momentum left over from my attempt on Thursday to get some writing done before we went out. Or maybe time off from my day job makes it a little easier for me to get out of bed in the morning. Whatever it was, I wrote over 700 words before 1:00pm, then went out for dim sum in the ID (International District) with my partner.
I’ve been on a pretty slow-moving search for my favorite dim sum place in Seattle ever since I first had outstanding dim sum...up in Vancouver. Damn it, Canada, why do you have everything?
Anyway, went to dim sum. I had a bit of trouble dealing with the chaos of the waiting area, but once we were finally seated, the food was fucking fantastic. All my dim sum faves, done to perfection.
My partner ended up talking to one of the hosts about One Piece, which I never fail to momentarily confuse for One Punch Man, every single time it comes up. (The difference is that I’ve seen all of One Punch Man, and I love it, whereas I barely have enough time to hear summaries of the sprawling mass that is One Piece, let alone actually watch it in entirety.) Partner then ended up debating whether I’d like a character who shows up pretty deep in the series, which involved his explaining that in this world, there’s an island populated by nothing but archeologists, which is where this character is from. That’s the non-spoilery version, anyway.
I asked if she was like Vash from Star Trek: Next Gen--Picard’s archaeologist/con-artist/thief/tomb raider/tomboy-femme-fatale sometime love interest. He said kinda, yeah. I like Vash. Although possibly more than that, I like Picard’s incredibly low-cut V-neck when he meets her for the first time. It’s a good episode.
Anyway, we capped off our dim sum adventure with some grocery shopping at Uwajimaya, where I probably should not have bought pastries but where I definitely did buy pastries. I also bought a sick red bean and chili oil sauce that I hadn’t been able to find in quite some time, and a veggie fake chicken that’s excellent and also only sometimes available. Good day.
Then I came home and sluggishly pushed myself the rest of the way to 1,800. It was a slog, but I got there. Ah, dim sum, you sweet, sweet temptress.
-Tess
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