marcicat | Entries tagged with writing

I'm writing! (I mean, not at this exact moment. But the energy of writing is happening.) It's for Taggle, so I think it's supposed to be secret until the game is over. So here are six completely non-revealing sentences of my current WIP!

1. "Like what?"
2. "Don't move."
3. "Wait!"
4. "This does seem like maybe more than that."
5. "I don't know."
6. "How is that helpful?"

Oh yeah, it's all coming together now!

Thank you, communal_creators! That sure was A Week on the personal health and work stuff fronts, and it was really nice to have a low-stress creative goal to think about when everything else was too much.

Final results: mostly crochet, a little writing. Reached skein #5 (of a probably 8) on my current crochet project, had some thoughts about future projects.

Communal Creators time-tracking week started yesterday, huzzah! And there's a spreadsheet! (Heck yeah, spreadsheets!)

I was planning to do crochet for my 'creative time,' but wound up doing 20 minutes of writing yesterday and not much else. (That was twenty minutes split into four 5-minute blocks. Writing is hard.)

Let's see what happens today!

I haven't actually written anything since... ::checks notes:: last November, which now feels approximately 800 years ago.

But yeah, this process seems familiar:

STEP 1: write a sentence
STEP 2: this is going great! 1000 words? I've got this
STEP 3: get distracted
STEP 4: it's been three hours and I still only have one sentence, this is going terribly
STEP 5: maybe I should come back to it tomorrow?
STEP 6: okay, focus, I can do this, right? maybe just try to write ONE SENTENCE

And then repeat from the beginning!

I'm currently stalled out at 650ish words. ::tempts myself back towards the fic tab with cookies:: Maybe just ONE SENTENCE?

Week three of Be a Goldfish begins today!

WEEK THREE: Don’t Dodge the Draft
What it says on the tin: complete and share a draft! Open the Google Docs floodgates. Release the Photoshop prisoners. Finish something you’ve been meaning to finish for a while. No more languishing projects: check it off your fandom to-do list!

At first I didn't think I had any drafts, but then I realized there IS a draft lurking in my gdocs, but it's already about 2000 finished(ish) words, then like three sentences of 'I have no idea where I was going with this' randomness.

SO. My current plan (hahahaha) is to post the 2000 words, backdated to whenever I wrote it (2019? maybe?). Then write something less than 1000 words (the goldfish max) as a follow up fic.

The Fun Challenge: include ALL of those 'I have no idea where I was going with this' sentences.

The Hard Challenge: looks like I'm going to need to write something

November feels like a loooooooong time ago now, even though it's been less than three weeks since it ended. But way back in yesteryear (three weeks ago or so), I finished my half-nano fic, and now it's posted!

********
Title: Sanctuary Code

Author: marcicat

Fandom: Murderbot (TV), The Murderbot Diaries (Martha Wells)

Characters: SecUnit | Murderbot, ART | Perihelion, Pin-Lee, Arada, Ratthi, Palisade Combat SecUnit, Gurathin, Iris, Dr. Mensah, Lutran

Tags: AU, Found Family, IN SPACE, mutual administrative assistance-ship, avoiding talking about feelings, or anything else, SecUnit to the rescue

Summary: A series of awkward conversations.

Authors note: This started as an AU look at one way 'Exit Strategy' might go in a Murderbot (TV) universe, then gradually went off the rails, as stories sometimes do.

on Dreamwidth
on AO3

*WE MADE IT!!!

*what a month it has been

*total goal word count: 25,000

*total current word count: 25,345

*goal achieved! now I just need to... ::checks notes:: finish the story

*I mean, the ending is written, and I'm 10,000% done with striving, so whatever it was that happened (or didn't happen, mostly) in the last couple chapters is just going to stay that way

*mostly I want to do a read-through to make sure I didn't leave any sentences unfinished (haha would I do that? yes, definitely)

*current story summary: A series of awkward conversations.

*total goal word count: 25,000

*total current word count: 24,500ish (SO. CLOSE.)

*I am every-so-slowly slogging through the last few chapters to connect the bits and pieces I've already written and (ever hopeful!) bring the story to some sort of conclusion.

*will it make sense? I have no idea

*will it have 25,000 words? oh, it's GONNA have 25,000 words!

*last sentence written: Then I did what I kept thinking about doing, and walked out of the room.

(*REMEMBER: repeating something twice means you forgot you already did it once, but repeating something three or more times makes it a THEME)

*AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*ultimately, I managed about 300 words yesterday, which is a lot fewer than I'd hoped, but a lot more than I expected!

*OH NO IT IS TIME TO DECORATE FOR CHRISTMAS

*not in the story, though

*in the story it's time to ::checks notes:: wrap up the conversation at the end of file #2

*...yeah, and then figure out what in the world is happening in file #3

*good news! it only needs to keep happening for about 1500 more words, or even a bit less than that!

*less good news! I stared at the file for 20 minutes today without writing a single word, then scrolled tumblr for an hour!

*last sentence written: "Why do you have it?"

*I'M TAKING THIS LOOP OFF

*THE ONE SENTENCE I WROTE, WHICH IS ALL I'M ASKING MYSELF TO WRITE TODAY: "You think I have it with me all the time?"

*total goal word count: 25,000

*total words so far: 22,500ish** (we're getting into 'how will AO3 count these words' territory, which is always a fun game)

*last line written: "Which part?"

*it sure has been a month

*what is happening

*coffee pls

[**hahahahahaha I imagined a whole extra thousand words when I originally posted this!]

*total goal word count: 25,000

*total current word count: 20,500ish (ooh, just gotta rearrange those digits a bit!)

*words count up to the first 'come back and fill in this gap' space: about 12,100, which isn't ideal, but that was a tricky chapter, and there are a few largely complete chapters later, so... probably fine!

*the "planned plot points" and my progress so far:
1. go to place #1: achieved!
2. leave place #1: achieved!
3. go to place #2: achieved!
4. leave place #2: achieved!
5. go to place #3: hahahaha let's call it 'in progress'
6. some sort of conclusion: not really? idk, conclusions are hard

*last sentence written: What's your point?

*total goal word count: 25,000

*today's goal: achieve 20,000!

*current mood: starting to get a bit worried about that third file, to be honest

*last sentence written (approximately?): Sure, why not?

*total goal word count: 25,000

*total current word count: honestly, who even knows at this point? certainly not me! I'm hoping to hit 20,000 by the end of the weekend

*last sentence written: That was true, at least.

*current writing strategy: TALK AMONGST YOURSELVES, NO PLOT JUST CHAT

*best thing about having a big writing goal: it makes all the other things I want to do seem WAY more fun -- holiday decorating? yes please! chores? sure!

*after doing exactly zero research, I'll boldly claim that day 20 is always a challenging day

*to be fair, all the days of nanowrimo are a challenge, so it's probably not *that* bold of a claim

*ANYWAY

*the exciting news is that file #1 is probably mostly sort of done? it's done enough that I've closed it (I put the word count in the file name so I don't have to keep re-checking it)

*so, yeah, less than 10,000 words to go! ::weak cheering::

*total words so far today is a whopping zero, so there's also that happening (or not happening)

*random sentence written some other day: "Right, but all of that is explained in season seven, when you find out that the first six seasons were a simulation, and all of those inconsistencies were actually clues."

*total goal word count: 25,000

*current total words: 16,000(ish?)

*still only three files, thank goodness

*there's always a shift around this time when I stop thinking 'oh no what if there's not enough words?!?' to 'oh no what if I can't wrap it up in time!?!'

*and then it usually shifts back again a few thousand words from the finish line

*non-writing note: time to wear my Thanksgiving 5K sweatshirt to the office, since it's the last office day before the holiday, woohoo!

*last sentence written: You are meant to be drawing attention.

*total goal word count: 25,000

*current total word count: 15,000ish (too early in the day for math)

*current mood: AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*writing this post inspired me to write SEVERAL sentences this morning, just so I could have a 'last sentence written' that was appropriately vague and nonsensical

*last sentence written: Twice -- no, three times.

*total goal word count: 25,000

*in classic nanowrimo tradition, the goal feels both closer and muuuuuuuch further away now that the halfway point has passed

*current total word count: somewhere around 14,200

*I'm hoping to reach 25,000 by the 28th, to give me two days (over the weekend, even!) to 1) write any more words that are needed at that point, and 2) read through it to make sure I didn't leave any sentences unfinished (would I do that??? yes, absolutely)

*then again, every year I hope to reach the goal a few days early to give myself time to wrap it up tidily, and it basically never happens, so who knows?

*getting meta today with the last sentence written: That didn't make any sense.

*total goal word count: 25,000

*total word count so far: idk? I think 13,000ish, but there are three files now, for some reason? (okay, I thought it would be motivating and help me visualize the story flow better, which is sort of working)

*my writing 'strategy' (such as it is) for this story has been: write whatever snippets come to mind, regardless of what general section of the story they might be from, then organize them later and fill in the gaps

*in the sense that I've managed to write a bunch of words, it's working! whether or not those words make a coherent story, eh, hard to say

*I think I'm going to need at least one more thing to happen

*I even accidentally wrote something that could be foreshadowing that thing! ("As long as I don't have to sneak around and rescue anyone this time.")

*hahaha but whomst???

*last line written: "That would be illegal."

*total goal word count: 25,000

*total word count so far: 12,500ish (heck yeah, halfway!)

*total words that are pretty much a consecutive block: 7617

*victories: resolved the day 8 problem, hooray

*new problems I've found since then: too numerous to count, really

*random sentence I wrote at some point that seems appropriate for today: Ugh, this question again.

*the "planned plot points" and my progress so far:
1. go to place #1: achieved!
2. leave place #1: achieved!
3. go to place #2: kind of?
4. leave place #2: see: new problems
5. go to place #3: very shaky
6. some sort of conclusion: nonexistent

*yeah, seems about right for day 15

Profile

marciratingsystem

June 2026

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30

Syndicate

Page Summary

Active Entries

Style Credit

Base style: Practicality by timeasmymeasure
Theme: Citrusy by krja

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jun. 28th, 2026 08:52 pm

The Marci Rating System

Entries tagged with writing

six sentence Sunday

let's get this month done

starting slow is still starting

it's all coming back to me

OH NO

nanowrimo 2025 posted!

IT'S DAY 30!

DAY 29: THE COUNTDOWN INTENSIFIES

DAY 28: THREE DAYS LEFT

day 27: THANKSGIVING CHECK-IN

day 26

day 24

day 23

day 22

day 20

day 19

day 18

day 17

day 16

DAY 15: HALFWAY POINT CHECK-IN