Project: Narthex draft 3
New words: 3,715
Total word count: 7,210
Goal: 7,210 words (or thereabouts)

Writing: And this draft is done.  I’m fairly happy with it, and hope that my editor will be as well. 

Real life: Still getting knocked around a lot by the weather, so I’m trying to take it somewhat easy.  Not getting a huge choice in that, since fatigue levels are high. 

Total words for 2008: 493,239

Project: Shaede draft four and a bit
New words: 3,494
Total word count: 3,494
Goal: 7,300 words (or thereabouts)

Writing: I ended up spending a good chunk of time reworking some stuff that I’d written yesterday, just some additiong that I’d made and wasn’t too happy with.  I would have liked to have gotten some more done today, and I may come back for another writing session later on and see if I can get another thousand words out.  I really would like to have this finished in the next day or two so I can spend a bit of time doing some research for the Nano novel.

I also made some inroads on catching up with reviews for Horroscope, posting the first of many that I’m behind on.

Real life: Not a lot.  Woke up early this morning in anticipation of a painter coming to fix up our bedroom ceiling (which was damaged when our roof leaked earlier in the year).  I should get up early more often, because I’ve been crazy productive, despite feeling a bit under the weather all day.

Total words for 2008: 489,524

Project: Narthex
New words: 2,305
Total word count: 2,305
Goal: 7,300 words (or thereabouts)

Writing: It feels weird to be working on something else, especially when it’s not a novel.  I’m so used to plotting something larger than this, that it almost feels like a holiday.  I’m working on edits at the moment, fixing up a few bits and pieces based on some great feedback I’ve had from my editor.  It occurred to me earlier today how lucky I’ve been with editors of anthologies I’ve been involved with – as one, they’ve all been so easy and friendly to work with, and they’ve always helped me make stories into something more than I thought they could be.  I can only hope when the time comes for novel publication, I’ll be as lucky with editors there.

I’m rediscovering how much I like Narthex, and the story to which it’s related – it’s a prequel to Thought and Memory.  It’s confronting to write, for reasons that will become clear if you end up buying In Bad Dreams 2.  

Real life: The transition to daylight savings is knocking me around a little bit.  I love daylight savings, my body just doesn’t like the changeover time.  It’ll pass, though.  I did get the house cleaned and laundry done this morning, so I’m not feeling too bad.  Just a bit fuzzy and off.

Total words for 2008: 446,030

I am well chuffed about this.

New words: 1,914

Total words:1,914

Listening/watching: Rent.

Total words for the year: 31,535

Back to the novel today. And yes, I’ve gone back to the beginning, mainly because I want to work in another subplot.

Patchy day, where it felt like I was just working on dribs and drabs. It didn’t really help that I was distracting myself with about twenty other things as well. Someones working at home can be a bad thing.

One has been sent out into the world, but the other one ended up longer than I had anticipated, and is longer than the submission guidelines for the anthology I’d planned it for. I’m hoping they’ll give it a look, anyway.

Back to novel-land tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it.

New words:1,553

Total words:4,348

Listening/watching: The X-Files.

Total words for the year: 27,371

I just did a bit of tinkering with the end of Mirror today. I count it a good thing to get any words at all, given that I had men drilling and banging as they installed security frames and doors around the house today.

New words:2,784

Total words:4,378

Listening/watching: The X-Files.

Total words for the year: 25,838

And I have a full draft. A good full draft, too. Next step are some line edits, which may wait until next week, to give it time to rest.

I had a slow start to today, getting distracted by everything. After a while, the brain just clicked in, and I kept on going. I hadn’t intended on getting to the end today, but it just happened. Today, in other words, is a good day to be a writer.

New words:2,040

Total words:2,040

Listening/watching: The X-Files.

Total words for the year: 23,054

I decided to start another draft of Mirror, even though I hadn’t worked out the kinks in the ending of the last draft. The whole thing wasn’t connecting, and I want to make it a cohesive whole. With a short piece like this, it doesn’t bother me to go back to the start.

I seem to be working on three drafts these days as standard. I always work on the first drafts on the screen. Line edits will be done on a hard copy. I just hope I can get this into shape in time to submit it to the anthology I’ve been eyeing off. We’ll see, anyway. I’ll be at home for the next few days, since we have various contractors coming out to work on things, so I’ll have no excuse but to settle down to work properly.