Rift Walker Writing Log
Rift Walker is a work of fiction that has been bouncing around in my head ever since I saw the cover Keith Parkins did for a book called “Son of the Hero”. I didn’t know the name of the name of the book, but the image intrigued me and I started making a story behind it and the cover art for the book that was clearly the sequel.
I finally made something of an outline for the book, but never got very far in writing it until February of 2016. It was then that I started my habit of daily writing. You can see a part of my logs as I began to work on it, progressed through a bit of a drought, but then really began working on it in earnest.
This is what my log looked like in the beginning.
| Date | # words |
|---|---|
| 2014 Nov 1 | 1260 |
| 2014 Nov 3 | 420 |
| 2014 Nov 4 | 920 |
| 2014 Nov 5 | 152 |
| 2014 Nov 6 | 213 |
Then, a little later it evolved a bit more to be like this
| Date | # words | Time Spent | Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 Nov 8 | 2,201 | 2.5 hours (1430-1700) | In Lehi Library, listening to soundtracks. Writing on MacBook Air in soft chair |
| 2014 Nov 9 | 640 | 1.15 hours(2130-2245) | Bedroom, macbook air. No music |
| 2014 Nov 11 | 250 | .75 hours (2175-2210) | Tired. Falling sleep while writing. No music. Red chair. |
| 2014 Nov 12 | 150 | 15 minutes (2230-2254) | Tired, late night, still need to get to bed if I’m going to be effective tomorrow. |
| 2014 Nov 13 | 176 | 15 minutes (2325-2340) | Late night again. In red chair. |
| 2014 Nov 14 | 767 | 45 minutes (2000-2045) | Tired. Red chair. Long day at work |
| 2014 Nov 17 | 138 | 11 min (2145-2156) | Late night again. In red chair |
| 2014 Nov 22 | 595 | ? | At mall, struggling to stay awake |
| 2014 Nov 24 | 691 | 41 min (2157-2238) | Red chair, no music |
Then, as I approached the end of the project.
| Date | # words | Time Spent | Word/day target | Total Word count (at end of session) | Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 Aug 23 | 271 | - | - | 86,532 | In home office |
| 2016 Aug 24 | 408 | 20 minutes | 123 | 86,940 | Frontrunner. Listening to Power Tracks music. |
| 2016 Aug 25 | 366 | 21 minutes | 113 | 87,306 | Office, just before aikido. Listening to mood music. |
| 2016 Aug 26 | 500 | 20 minutes | 103 | 87,806 | On frontrunner, listening to Power tracks. Before writing I had begun planning out the scenes while taking a shower. Made things much faster to write and I wasn’t struggling as much. |
| 2016 Aug 29 | 365 | 20 minutes | 87 | 88,171 | On front runner. Super tired and falling asleep trying to write. |
| 2016 Aug 30 | 558 | 30 minutes | 76 | 88,728 | In waiting room while car was being serviced. |
| 2016 Aug 31 | 556 | 30 minutes | 55 | 89,284 | Frontrunner. Soundtracks. |
| 2016 Sep 1 | 321 | 20 minutes | 32 | 89,605 | Home office. Sound tracks. |
| 2016 Sep 2 | 383 | 15 minutes | 18 | 89,921 | Home office. Just before heading out to Portland. |
| 2016 Sep 5 | 449 | 15 minutes | 3 | 90,370 | On the way home from Portland. Lots of distractions from parents talking to me. |
| 2016 Sep 6 | 451 | 20 minutes | 401 | 90,820 | Upped the word count to 98000. In office at home, after coming home after lunch at work. Just about to go teach class at UVU. |
| 2016 Sep 7 | 437 | 20 minutes | 398 | 91,257 | At a park in SLC. Very tired and sleepy |
| 2016 Sep 8 | 544 | 15 minutes | ? | 91,801 | Evening, before bed. |
| 2016 Sep 9 | 433 | 30 mintues | 387 | 92,234 | On train and trax. |
| 2016 Sep 12 | 582 | 40 minutes | 384 | 92,816 | On train and trax. |
| 2016 Sep 13 | 619 | 40 minutes | 370 | 93,435 | In office |
| 2016 Sep 14 | 453 | 20 minutes | 351 | 93,888 | On train and trax |
| 2016 Sep 15 | 430 | 20 minutes | 342 | 94,318 | In office |
| 2016 Sep 16 | 539 | 30 minutes | 383 | 94,857 | Word count is odd. On train and trax on way here. Listening to power tracks |
| 2016 Sep 19 | 504 | 30 minutes | 314 | 95,316 | On train and trax |
| 2016 Sep 20 | 605 | 30 minutes | 293 | 95,966 | In office, listening to power tracks. |
| 2016 Sep 21 | 582 | 30 minutes | 254 | 96,584 | On train and trax. And I’M DONE!!! |