I’ve been hitting it pretty hard for weeks now. I admit, this weekend wasn’t really really productive. I got some things done, but I’m starting to wear thin.
This was a good weekend to work too. We’re between paychecks, and this means I can’t afford a lot of expensive distraction. It’s funny how the assessor never showed up when real estate prices were falling, but he made it right out when the market turned back up. My house payment is $100 per month higher now, due to taxes.
That same $100 could buy my cover art for Panama.
I didn’t write at all yesterday. It was the perfect day for it too. I needed to ruminate about a transition in my current story, and there was nothing I could do about that. My main character needs to go on the attack now, and shifting gears needs to get written the right way.
I managed to do some editing on Panama. (Coming soon to a Kindle near you.) These older works are good stories, but I’ve learned so much since I wrote them, that they need some cleaning up. I used to use a lot of filtering words, and killing them is dropping my word count. Panama is a short novel anyway, and I don’t want people to think they aren’t getting their monies worth. I managed to add more life to the jungle, and even included some smells and touch senses. If it’s still short, I may have to price it down accordingly.
I think Panama may need another editing pass once I finish this one. I want to double check the calendar and times in the story. Every writer runs the risk of saying something happened yesterday, when it was a week ago in the manuscript.
I used my cool fountain pen and wrote out some more character sheets. Some, or all of these characters will appear in whatever my next project is. For some reason, using a different tool makes you see things differently. There could be a shred of plot developing in my mind.
I also took some time off and just vegetated. I watched Django Unchained. Totally unrealistic, and totally fun. Lot’s of weapons errors, but I suspended disbelief well. I’m starting to really like Christoph Waltz, but I’ve only ever seen him in Tarantino movies.
Today, I laced up my writing boots and went to work. It didn’t amount to much, but there are 1152 new words on Will ‘O the Wisp. For those of you keeping track, I’m at 49,667 words now.
There is no absolute number of words for what qualifies as a novel. Popular thinking is 80,000 and that’s always been my benchmark. I used to always write long. I’ve learned to be more sparse, but now I have the opposite problem. It’s easier for me to trim than it is to add.
This blog update doesn’t mean I’m finished for the weekend. I’m about to begin reading the next book in the horror six pack I bought. I really enjoyed the last one about two thugs transporting a werewolf to an underworld boss. I have more editing to do too.
I’ll probably do a little bit of everything, but then I have a television appointment with the Walking Dead.
I always like the time changes when they come around, but I’m not looking forward to 4:00 AM Daylight Savings Time to start my work week.
Entertaining Stories 