Previously:
I decided not to publish an update on my iPhone novel writing project last weekend. Not much had changed since the first update, linked above, and I did say that I’d do these updates somewhat irregularly.
I won’t bore you with statistics at this time. Hitting 300 words per day on my iPhone is still no problem. I write between 300 and 400 words in 10–15 minutes. Most sessions end at around 330 words in 13 minutes, but it depends on how clear my vision is for the writing session.
It’s too early to talk about when and where I write, but something of a pattern is starting to emerge. I’ll get back to that when we’re further into the experiment.
Writing in small spurts have altered the outline a lot. I think that a tight outline would be preferred when working like this, but that’s not what I started with, so I’ve had to spend time tweaking the outline. This is part of the writing process, but I failed to take this into account when starting the experiment. I decided that as long as my word count was equivalent to 300+ words attached to the project, it mattered less if it was part of the outline or the manuscript. This messes a bit with the total word count of course, but since that’s based on 300 words daily, and I break that every day, I’ve decided that it’s acceptable. Thus far, I’ve had two days lost to the outline, so to speak.
Today, for example, I’ve spent my 300 words outlining. It was necessary, since I not only were starting to catch up to my proper outlining, but also have inserted several scenes and chapters that weren’t in the outline at all. This happens, and it’s the reason I like to keep my outline fairly general, sometimes hazy even. The outline should always be up to date however, so the update was overdue. I’ve written about outlines previously, if you’re interested.
The experiment continues. Expect the next update in a few weeks, perhaps a month, depending on what happens. You can keep up to speed by following me on Twitter or App.net. I tag my updates related to the experiment with the #MobNov hashtag.