It's getting technical
We’ve officially hit the business end of March. It’s been a fortnight of technical tweaks and steady progress, and I’m feeling a real sense of achievement as the "data" starts to back up the creative effort in the pond.
Round Two is In the Bag
The biggest milestone this week is that Memory Letters has officially been submitted for Round 2 of the Open Novella Contest.
The requirement was to reach 8,000 words by the end of the month, but I’ve managed to sail well past that. I’m currently sitting at over 22,000 words. Jane’s story is reaching a fever pitch, and having the bulk of the required writing done so early has allowed me to really focus on the tension of the prose.
The Mobile Studio & Writing on the Move
One of the reasons I’ve been able to maintain this pace is my "platform-agnostic" approach to the craft. I’m a firm believer that the best time to write is whenever you have a spare minute.
Whether I’m on my Windows laptop at my desk, lounging in the living room with my Samsung tablet, or out and about with phone, the story is always with me. In fact, I’ve been known to draft entire chapters while standing in queues for theme park rides! If I’ve got my phone in my hand, the work doesn't have to stop. It’s a great way to turn "dead time" into productive milestones.
A Writer’s Dashboard
To keep track of all this multi-device progress, I’ve recently shifted my workflow entirely into Google Docs. Being a bit of a tech enthusiast, I’ve written a custom automated script for my Memory Letters document.
It isn’t just a simple word counter; it provides a comprehensive breakdown of the story as I write. The script handles:
- Chapter-by-Chapter Tracking: Monitoring the flow and length of every scene.
- Goal Progress: Real-time updates on how close I am to my defined targets.
- Reading Time Insights: Helping me understand the "pace" from a reader’s perspective.
- Contest Milestones: It actually flags exactly where the specific narrative milestones fall within the text.
- The "Countdown" Logic: It tells me exactly how many days I have left and calculates the precise words-per-day I need to write to hit my goal.
Seeing the data behind the narrative, tracking pacing and word-count trends, adds a really satisfying layer to the process. It feels like having a digital assistant in the pond with me, ensuring I never fall behind.
"Sanctorum’s Veil" Getting the Tech Treatment
I was so impressed with how the script helped my ONC progress that I’ve now moved Sanctorum’s Veil also over to Google Docs. I’ve set it up with a similar automated script for analytics.
This script has subtle differences in that I'm tailored it for novel writing instead of a novella contest. I've also added a dynamic goal tracking function. I can set a target word count on what in calling the Details tab and the script is clever enough to pick this out.
Even though the Veil is on a strategic pause, having it prepped with its own dashboard means I can pick up exactly where I left off with full visibility.
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