1462 Words

Yesterday, 5/17, saw 1462 words. A pretty good day. It also saw the end of that particular story. When I started writing this series, each section was its own contained story with its own beginning middle and end. This most recent story is more of a chapter though, because it certainly isn't the end of the characters story. Unfortunately, I hadn't plotted anything past this point. I'm not sure how far the rabbit hole will go. So it is likely that I will spend today plotting either the end of that story or plotting a different story. I am really ready for a break from this story. I want to get back to writing about dragons. At the same time, I really should just finish that story. I can't do anything with a story that is half finished. So that is where I'm at.

1056 + 106 Words

Friday, 5/14 saw 1056 words. Pretty good day. Sunday 5/16 saw only 106 words. Which was about it for the weekend. Could lay out some excuses here, but they would be just that, excuses. Excuses don't change the situation at large.

130 Words

I wrote something yesterday. But as I left my ipod at home, I can't check the count. It wasn't much. Probably under 500. I just wasn't feeling it yesterday. On the plus side of things, I did bring a notebook with me today, so some small part of my brain must have been working.

Edit 5/14: Worse than I thought. Blah.

848 words

848 words yesterday, 5/11/10. Will see if I can make up the difference today.

1092 Words

1092 words. Back at it today.

Story is nearly finished. Just have to wrap it up the right way. Though really, this should be a novel and not a series of short stories. Where I would be ending it now would be after the protag really finds out the truth of the situation, which really isn't much of an "end" if you look at it that way.

Ghost hunt went well. As well as such things can be expected. Well, we didn't see anything. There were a few areas that were a bit creepy. Mostly though, just some feelings and strange noises. The infirmary/pysch ward was probably the worst of it. Some cool photos though taken by a professional photographer, Jason Furda. If you're on facebook, you can check them out here.

493+428 Words

Words have dipped the last few days. 5/5 was 493, today was 428. Finals week for my college classes. This must be what it feels like to go down the brain drain on BrainSurge. I'm going to do my last test tomorrow. Very glad for summer break.

This weekend will likely not have much word count either. My wife and I are heading for a haunted tour of West Virginia State Pen on Saturday night/Sunday morning. Talk about an awesome mother's day gift, eh? I will uh... be counting it as experience for possible novel inclusion. Yeah. We'll call it research! So who knows, may have some interesting stories out of that.

1020 words

1020 words. A good day today. That puts this particular story close to 10k, maybe 12k or so by the time I finish it. Later I'll have to go back and get a count for the entire series.

3098 Words

3098 Words.

Well, as you can see, no posting happened over the weekend. That would be because there was no writing. I'll admitting to slacking off Saturday evening, Sunday ended up being full.

So, on the bad side, no writing over the weekend.

On the plus side of things, cranked out 3k today. Not a bad little number. Good to know I'm capable of achieving that kind of output. I was considering upping my word goal once this semester of classes is over. But probably not 3k worth.

Also on the bad side of things, think my IEM is all tapped out. Around 2500 words, I was really dragging. Can't say how good or bad the quality is around that point. But hey, made the goal.

Kind of wraps around to the reason I'm not a fan of NaNoWriMo. In order to crank out that number of words, I would just have to fill pages with utter crap. And that seems rather pointless to me. But that is just me. Glad it works for some people.

The story is nearing completion. Rather excited about that. Things are really getting tied together. Kind of like a rug that ties the room together. Yeah, I'm done.

1136 words

1136 words. Was a bit tougher today, as I spent a good portion of the afternoon putting in a garden. But totally worth it. Can't wait to see our veggies coming up. This weekend will be interesting, as it is my first weekend doing this, and I'm not sure how much time I will get when we're off doing all kinds of weekend stuff. But for now, I'm ready to chill and play some games.

1065 Words

1065 words. Another good day. Nearing the end of this series. Looking forward to getting back to my Dragon Lords novel.

1030 words

1030 words. Also spent an hour editing passive words out of another story, but that doesn't count toward the total.

1067 words

1067 words. moved the story forward, leading up to the ending sequence. Though I think one more story will be required before the big reveal.

1339 Words

1339 Words. If you count the paper I finished writing for school earlier, that puts me closer to 2300 words for the day.

Fiction was a little chunk of background thought process, but mostly the start of the next day in the series SF story I'm working on. Guess I'll need to get some kind of title for it so I'm not so vague.

Day 1 of keeping track. Good start. Little accountability is a good thing. Feel free to post a WTF where's the words post if you see me skip a day. The goal is 1k a day.

Been reading Chuck Wendig lately over at Terrible Minds. It's a good blog, a lot of writing stuff there. A lot of butt kicking goes on there, which is what prompted me to start actually keeping track rather than just saying I'm going to write "lots". If you're into PnP gaming or writing, or like a little twisted humor, check him out.

Also signed up with Dropbox for all my backup online storage needs. You get 2 gig free. I'm happy with it so far, plenty to back up my writing. Check it out if you need something like that. I also have the ipod app so I can sync it there too.

Caught Up

Well, I'm caught up from the notebooks. Everything is digial now. What a relief. The process was good to get me refreshed on where I was at in the novel too. It's not world class writing, but it's there, and I can work with it.

I'm tired. Currently nursing a diet pepsi. Will be a coffee night tonight. Anyone have a time travel device so that I can do what I currently do and get eight hours of sleep?

So my to-do list is as it stands:

• Novel - at least I know where I need to go with it for the immediate future.
• Edit Bingo story - figured out what I need the end to be, for a more satisfying conclusion. Sub that.
• edit pre-quel short stories or complete them. predates events that are happening in novel. Probably a total of three stories. Then sub them.
• short story cycle - i still want to finish this. probably the longest of my short projects.

Kurt mentioned he was having problems commenting. So if you're reading here, please try and comment. Or let me know if it doesn't work. Thanks!

Updates

I must start by first thanking my wife. Thanks babe. Thanks for watching the kids. I totally wasn't expecting any quiet time right now, I promise I'll make the best of it. So, no blowing off the morning playing WoW.

Of the 7 stories in the short story cycle, I finished 2. That's not very good. They have probably both come in around 5000 words, so extrapolating that would give me 35,000 words which is considerable. Nice little novellette going for me. Toward the end of the second story, I was rushing it. I don't think it came out good at all, and need considerable work. But the story is done. I got my hero to the point that he needs to be. And the rest of the crew hungering for revenge. Sorry for blowing that deadline Mike, I'm just not a fast writer. It seemed so doable when I started. We all write at different paces. Mine, a bit slower than most I'd bet.

I still need to edit Lost Pages. I want to get that out to the markets, see if it can find a home. I like the story. I think too in writing this last story for the Cycle, I've decided I like writing fantasy a lot more than sci-fi. I love reading sci-fi, but I'm not so good with writing the science side of things. Mostly just ends up an adventure in space. Not that there is anything wrong with that, other franchises have seemed to pull that off pretty well (Star Wars?). I have a lot of themes in the Cycle that I'm trying to tackle at the same time. Maybe too much.

I still want to tell the story of the Vhor (my aliens in the Cycle), but I think for the immediate future I'm going to take a break from that, and write the follow-up story to Lost Pages.

I've also decided I write much better when I have some kind of outline before me. It gave my cycle a lot more direction. I have a loose outline for the Lost Pages stories. Once I finish both (Lost Pages, and Cycle) I need to look seriously at writing up an outline for the novel. It's still rolling around in the back of my head, but I haven't worked on it in a few months.

So, that's where I am. Time to get to writing.

Writing Along

I was wrinting along last night, all was going well. Then I dozed off and completely lost my train of thought. Picked it back up this morning and all is well again.

This challenge is 7 interconnected stories. Yet they need to be able to stand alone. ABDCE. While I am enjoying the project, it's certainly not turning about to be short by any stretch of the imagination. Then of course is the worry about whether or not I'll be able to sell it later. Maybe pick the best and send that one off, hoping a mag would pick up the others afterwards. Or try and sell it as a group. We shall see. I really am enjoying writing the story. I guess that is the main part. I'd just like to see something come of it after I'm done. Something more than my own satisfaction at seeing it completed.

edit: I guess I should worry about getting this done more than I should worry about whether or not it will be published.

Flash of Insight

Ahhh... Always at the strangest of times. I've figured out why my antagonists hate the humans, and probably turned my humans into the villians. At least as a race. Now to just get the story written.