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Monday Update: 1,000,000 words of crap, and failure.
Last week I publically said, I’ll try to write 3K per day ’til May. You may be asking yourself, how’d it go?
FAILURE!
That’s right. I missed! Badly! Not even close. Well, okay. That last one is a lie. Here’s the breakdown by day:
Monday: 1422
Tuesday: 3019
Wednesday: 1467
Thursday: 3090
Friday: 3044
Saturday: 3430
Sunday: 1646
For a grand total os 17,118 words over 7 days. Just under 4,000 words from the goal. So, a miss. I started out from behind right out of the gate, did well one day, missed again, hit a three-day streak, then I had to work most of the day on Sunday and didn’t feel like sitting in front of a computer, but did anyway.
Is it really failure? If you’re looking purely at word count per day, yes. If you’re looking at it as the average for the week, yes, I missed. Regardless, my whole point is to TRY and write 3K per day average over the next two weeks. There’s still a chance I may catch up, but I’m not going to fight and struggle. I’ll take a 17,000-word week every week if I could.
I’ve still got a week to go, and I learned a lot about myself over the past seven days. I learned that I can write very quickly as most days I didn’t start writing until after 8pm. I also found out that I love to procrastinate.
I still spent time with my family. My wife and I had a great date day on Saturday since I knew I’d be working all day on Sunday. I learned that sitting in front of a computer for 12 hours is tiring (well, I knew that already), but I learned that even if I’m mentally exhausted, I can still bang out words. I’m excited to see what I’ll learn this week about my writing process.
So what’s with the 1,000,000 words of crap?
I posted a few years ago that I’d hit that number. I haven’t written another million. What that number represents if the number of words I’ve written in novels. My previous count included every short story I’d ever written, a rough estimate of words that came that would never see the light of day, and stories that will never be published, self or otherwise.
So this million is only the count in books I’ve written. I’m proud of that number. It tells me where I came from and where I’ve gotten to. I still have all those other words stored somewhere. For example, there are 4 Of Gnomes and Dwarves books, multiple drafts, some hand written, that I’m not counting in that million. Those words are only books that will see the light of day, or are currently in the process of being written or edited.
When I crossed that number this week, I had a little smile. I’m proud of that accomplishment. If I can keep pace with my writing over the next year, I may hit 2,000,000 faster than I hit the 1,000,000 mark. Like, next year faster. We’ll see how it goes.
I’m off to get my start on week two of my 3K per day ’til May challenge. If you’re enjoying my blog posts, or if you just want a free ebook of mine, consider signing up for my newsletter. I share different information there and may modify the format soon. I’d love to have you be part of what happens over there. You can click here.
That’s all for this week.
Until Next Time…
Stay Awesome!
Monday Update: Book 2 of the Year Complete
Good Morning and Happy Monday! Did you read the title of this blog? If not, let me repeat it here. Book 2 of the year is complete!
That’s right. I plan on writing 5 books this year, and the second is DONE!
Well, if you recall I’m only counting this as a half book. When Mike Plested and I complete Jack Kane 2, I’ll also count that one as a half book.
But, hey! Another book done! I really love the way Almost-Super Heroes came to an end. Yes, yes, I left it open for a sequel and I already know how the book will start, how it’ll go, and how it’ll end.
I’m so excited. I finished the book on Saturday. I wrote nearly 5000 words that day to finish the book. I also did a bunch of things around the house including fixing the fridge. I can’t wait to share this book with you. I really can’t. It ties in with GRPC and V&A Shipping. I’m working on something really exciting story-wise with these titles and it’s something I’ve dreamt up for the past few years. It’s so awesome to see it all coming together.
What am I working on next? Glad you asked.
I’m working on Golden West Book 3: Showdown.
Wait, Jay, I thought you said you were excited about GRPC and V&A Shipping, and all that.
Yes, yes. I am. I’m super crazy excited about that series and what I’ll be writing in all those books. But I need some closure. The way I’d ended Golden West Book 2 was desperate for an ending. I need to finish that one off. The third book will be the last in that series. I don’t know if I’ll ever visit that universe again. So, I need to finish that series off and let it be done. Between yesterday and today, I read through books 1 and 2 and wow are they emotionally draining books to read. I really put these characters through the ringer.
Book 3? Yes, I know exactly how the book will go. I’m weird like that. Books pop into my head fully formed and it’s only a matter of sitting and writing it out. Unlike books 1 and 2, this one will be longer. I have a lot of threads to tie up and a build up to a satisfying ending. I’d always intended this to be a trilogy. That’s why I’m not certain I’ll ever visit these characters or this universe again.
Why?
I have soooooo many books I want to write. I have a list of running ideas. I need to get back to the Astel series (it will no longer be a trilogy). I need to work on my Epic Fantasy series, Of Gnomes and Dwarves. I want to write more Billy stories (none will fall into the V&A Shipping Universe). I want to crank out more Supernatural Learning books. I even have an entirely new series that I haven’t even started that I think will be a BLAST to write. Plus I have three other titles/series that I want to dig into and write in.
On top of that, I want to record everything as audio and get all my current titles published. Those are just waiting for me to record them and get them out the door.
Will this be an active year for my writing? Oh yeah! Will next year? Oh yeah!
Where am I at today?
Let’s start with, done with my Lent Goal and still one more week to go! That’s right. For the first time since I started tracking my words, I hit my Lent writing goal!. Over 46 days I was going to write 92,000 words and as of my writing this I’m sitting at 92,881. So I actually passed my goal on Saturday.
How’s my secondary goal of 2750 words per day average going? Close. Very close. For the past 17 days I’ve averaged 2676. So I need a couple good days to get back to that target. What happened? Well, yesterday happened, that’s what.
As I said, between yesterday and today I re-read Golden West 1 and 2 to get back into that world so I could work on book 3. I had the first little bit thought out and it’ll be a bit explainy as I get readers up to speed on what came before. So yesterday I only had ~500 words. Now that I’m caught back up on… oh, wait, if you haven’t read books 1 and 2 I can’t tell you what I’m getting caught up on. Shame on you. You almost had me tell you.
Suffice to say, it feels good to be in this world. Can’t wait to lay down words, but I have to. I need to get a chapter back to Mike in Jack Kane 2 as we’re nearly done with that book as well. Then I’ll bang out some words with Abigail, Jax, and the rest of the gang.
So there will be many, many words in the future. I’m sorry to make you wait on them, but I have a super-secret plan in my back pocket and I hope you’ll still be here for the ride. I need to get to writing so…
Until Next Time,
Stay Awesome!
Covers Covers Everywhere!
I got myself busy this weekend. I made a whole bunch of covers for upcoming releases (and a couple for next year). Check them out. Let me know what you think. I’m open to suggestions. Once I have edits applied I will be getting these books out there. My next step is to get a cover for V&A Shipping II. Then I only need a couple more covers and I’ll have everything I need for the rest of this year. I’m having so much fun using my new found photoshop skills 🙂
Daily Update: NaNoWriMo Postmortem
First of all, I ‘won’ NaNoWriMo. That was one of my many goals for 2012 was to finally win NaNoWriMo. I’d only done this once in 2007 when I was working on the first V&A Shipping novel. This year I was working on the sequel to V&A Shipping and I had a blast writing it. Writing goals I’ll discuss later this month when I do my 2012 postmortem. There’s a lot to discuss on 2012 and NaNoWriMo is just one small piece.
Coming into NaNoWriMo I was trying to finish up Of Gnomes and Dwarves Book 1. I’d written and re-written and edited this book to death over about a ten year span. One of my goals for 2012 was to use the first book as an outline and write it from scratch and not try and edit the book to be better. I started that effort in mid-September and thought I would be able to finish prior to NaNoWriMo starting.
Heh heh
So as it got closer to November and I needed to get an episode of Golden West written and produced as well as assembling the Action Pack Podcast I had my work cut out for me. I still had a ways to go with Of Gnomes and Dwarves and I also needed to get a plot written up before I began.
I finished Of Gnomes and Dwarves on October 30th by writing 4000 words per day the last few days. It was a blast to write the end of that book and coming off that high I needed to be ready for another marathon of writing all of November. I honestly wasn’t sure I would be able to pull it off. I was spent after the end of re-writing the first book I’d ever written, but I was excited to write V&A II.
October 31st 2012; Halloween. Lots to do as it was a work day, Halloween, and much to do that night. I had a rough plot in my head and I had a vague idea of where the story was going to start and where it was going to end. I knew I was going to be introducing an unexpected romance, a new character from Earth, and a Dyson Sphere in trouble. I even had the first line in my head.
“It’s kind of hard to lose a planet, kid.”
This, of course, would be Vic talking to Joey. What did Joey do wrong? How’d they lose the planet? Where was the planet going? How was B.T. Justice going to be involved? How were they going to get out of this pickle? So many questions.
I wrote 25 sentences to get me just over halfway through the story and a few questions that I knew needed answering in the long run. Some answered in Book 2, some will carry over in the series. I didn’t have any names for anything. That was a major frustration, but I’m good like that and I’ve gotten better in not letting something like that slow me down.
So the day before NaNoWriMo I wrote around 400 words of plot. That was it. I felt weak in the knees. I felt like I rushed Of Gnomes and Dwarves. I didn’t think I could pull off 50,000 words in November with Thanksgiving, volleyball games, practices and everything else going on. It’s a short month and so much going on.
Here’s a screenshot of my excel spreadsheet to show the NaNoWriMo word goal. You can see I had a great first day, then nada the second day. Yeah. I was worried, but I knew I could pick up the slack. I did great for most of the month. You can then see things fell apart toward the end of the month and a couple days where it was touchy and others where it was plain nose to the grindstone and go for it writing. This is just how I work even though I try to write daily.
It wasn’t an easy month. A lot happened. I lot went on in my head thinking about things I needed to take care of. Plans beyond December into 2013 and so many things I need to take care of. But this was one goal I promised myself. I was going to knock NaNoWriMo out of the park. I didn’t knock it out of the park, but I had a solid showing and I’m proud of that. A hit is still a hit even if it wasn’t a home run.
One of the biggest things I learned in NaNoWriMo that I’ve tried to stick with throughout the year is to keep on writing. Don’t worry about what’s broke, just keep going until you hit then end and THEN worry about what’s broke. I can always re-write scenes, chapters, sections, and in the case of Of Gnomes and Dwarves, entire books. Everything is fixable. Pushing ahead in spite of your internal editor and your own self doubts is what matters.
I’ll admit one thing. Before NaNoWriMo I deleted all the games off my tablet and phone. Angry Birds, Temple Run, couple tower defense games, everything. Gone. Zap. Done! It wasn’t easy, but I did it. This was the best thing I could have done for my productivity during November. No longer did I have the excuse of “Oh, I’ll just get three stars on this one level and then I’ll get to writing. Okay, one more level.” That kind of mentality ate away many hours prior to NaNoWriMo and I wasn’t about to let it eat away my time during November.
I also got back in the habit of “I’m not feeling it” and forcing myself to get up and come back in five or ten minutes and start over. Basically doing a reset in my brain so I would not focus on a blank page, but start typing. I even started with my Daily Updates again which are a great primer to get all the funk out of my head. It helps me work through what I’m doing, keeps my goal in front of me, and forces me to address the day at hand.
If I looked at 50,000 words, that was overwhelming. I won’t lie. It’s daunting. But when I look at 1667 that’s not a daunting number. I can type that many words in one sitting no problem. I’ve done 2500 words an hour before if I’m excited enough or motivated enough. I just need to focus on the task at hand and go for it.
Looking at something so big in smaller chunks helps even when looking at my annual goal, but we’ll cover that when I do my 2012 breakdown.
All in all I wrote 67,830 words during the month of November. 50105 of those words were new fiction. I’m excited about that number. I’m looking at November and I know I won’t write 50,000 words for a couple of reasons, but we’ll get to that in another post.
I took the entire weekend off from writing. I read a lot of short stories. I read a good chunk of a new book (How I slept Myself to the Middle by Kevin Pollak) and I relaxed as much as possible. The new few weekends will be PACKED and even though I have the last two weeks of the year off, I will not be getting as much writing done as I’d like.
That being said, it’s time to do the day job.
Until Tomorrow!
WO WOO!
Daily Update: How’d that happen?
Before I get started, I’d like to ask one thing of you. I’m attempting to win a couple books from Jay Lake. There is a caption contest here. If you like my caption, please vote it up. If you don’t, I understand. And Thank you for your support 🙂
A little bit about Jay Lake, he’s got cancer (again) and is going through a rough patch. If you have a little time, check out his site, see if his work interests you,and pick up a book if you’re able.
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This morning I was taking my favorite daughter to school. As I turned the corner to the main road I saw an ambulance way back behind us. I joked that I’m going to outrun the ambulance and make the turn to school. Being that it was so far behind this, it wasn’t something that would be difficult but I wasn’t trying to do anything stupid. I made the turn to the road her school is on and joked again that we beat it! Then we were stuck at the end of a very long line of cars. I saw the ambulance turn the corner and promptly got to the side of the road and the entire line followed suit. Color me impressed.
People dropping their kids off at her school can sometimes be…frustrating. With unsignaled turns, illegal u-turns, kids jaywalking, people pulling out without looking, drastic stops and starts, it’s an accident just waiting to happen. My first thought was that I hoped no one had gotten hurt.
As we got closer to the school, they were waving people away from the first drop off point, Freshman Circle. I only ever went in there once and it was so difficult to get back out that I vowed never to try that again. My Favorite Daughter made it to school on time, but I spent the better part of the morning trying to get back out. Looking into the circle we could see a firetruck and the ambulance. Then I saw the car.
*Note: We were stopped. I do my best to keep traffic flowing and not rubber neck.
The car had hopped the curb and crashed into one of the many concrete barricades. The car was in bad shape. The concrete looked unconcerned. All I could think at that point was “I hope everyone is alright.” Well, that and “How’d they managed do do THAT?”
Freshman circle isn’t that big. There are usually a lot of other cars, buses, foot traffic. So get enough speed to do that much damage couldn’t have been easy. My guess is that will be the talk of the school this morning. I’ll post an update tomorrow once I know what happened. Again, my hope is that no one was seriously injured.
On the Writing Front: I got 1500 words knocked out yesterday. I hope to have a repeat performance again today. There are many things to do so it may or may not happen. We will just have to wait and see how it goes. I’m getting to the really exciting parts of Of Gnomes and Dwarves so the writing should start to go faster. I don’t want to rush it and skip over details. I did a little editing last night as I was going due to the fact that I had to go back and check some facts and better understand what I had laid out.
I’m starting to plot out V&A Shipping II. Yes, I’m finally going to write the sequel. I already have the first line in my head and I’ll re-write this when I start NaNoWriMo: “Kid, it’s kind of hard to lose a planet.” At least that what I think I want the first line to be. Just like with the first V&A Shipping, we’re dumped right into the action. It’ll be another roller coaster ride and I’m going to have a lot of fun in November revisiting Vic, Argman, Joey, June, and Dexter. I’ll, of course, have to add a new android and some other new shipmates. I have plans, I have characters in mind, and I know you’ve waited far too long for a follow-up book. I don’t know, at this time, if I’ll be podcasting it. I don’t know if B.T. Justice and Junior will return, but I’m certain they’ll play a role in there somewhere. Like I said, still in the plotting stages at this point.
The first book was a mash up of Smokey and the Bandit and Star Wars (an intergalatic beer run) but book II will not be like Smokey and the Bandit II. Hopefully my sequel will have a little more substance. Again, we’ll just have to wait and see. No matter what happens, it’ll be fun. Trust me on that one.
Okay, before I can do any of that, I need to get through the work day.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: That feeling of frustration
I haven’t written in a couple of days. That’s frustrating. It’s not from a lack of desire. It’s from a lack of time. I know this will occur, but hey, I can still feel frustrated, right?
I know that I shouldn’t. I’m still thinking of what I want to/need to write so that means my writing sessions will be more productive.
There’s also the upside as to why I haven’t written. 1) Getting a lot of work on the day job done (even at night) and 2) My favorite daughter’s volleyball team is kicking ass!
My favorite daughter loves volleyball. I love that she loves volleyball. I love to sit on the side next to the wife and other parents and cheer them on. I feel great (for them) when they win. I suffer when they lose. Monday’s game was against a team they’d beaten earlier in the season. In two games (best two out of three). Monday they lost the first game 20-25. They won the second 25-23. The third game was a stressful back and forth and back and forth that finally ended in a win of 18-16 (a game to 15 points that must be won by 2 points). The girls all fought and even if they’d lost, they had nothing to be disappointed about.
Then I watched the Chargers choke on Monday night football and decided to just go to bed knowing that my favorite daughter is on an awesome team.
Last night I had to go to the store a couple of times and do some late night work to get a bit ahead on the project I’m working on. I’m ahead now and I feel good about that. The past two nights have left me spent. So rather than try and write, I watched a couple speed painting videos (I’m learning Photoshop and Illustrator). These helped relax my brain and I’m trying to do something every day with regards to learning how to draw.
I’m learning that drawing is much like writing. It’s all about layers, one on top of the other. It’s a recursive process that you need to go over, and over, and over to get it right. You can just BANG done. I think that’s always been my problem with drawing in the first place.
So I haven’t progressed as much as I would have liked in the past couple of days. That needs to change as I want to have the first draft of Of Gnomes and Dwarves completed before NaNoWriMo starts. Why? During November I want to Start on V&A Shipping II. Yes, after all these years I’m going to write a sequel to V&A Shipping. I’ve got the story in my head, I’ve got a plot in my head, I just need to get some words down, a chapter by chapter blow, then prepare for November where I’ll be writing at least 50,000 words which will be a great start on V&A II.
Before I can do that, I need to get through the work day. I’d better go do that.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: More words than you can shake a stick at.
Had another great writing day yesterday. I’m hopeful for another repeat performance again today, but I’m not sure if it’ll happen or not. Why?
My favorite daughter had volley ball practice (two 2 hour sessions).
I’ll be doing an interview.
I have a major release for work tonight.
I need to get things ready for camping this weekend.
If I can squeeze in a little writing time, I’ll be happy. Maybe I’ll get lucky. Who knows. I do need to get a new Unorthodox Writing Tips written and up. I had written five weeks worth some time back and those have run out. I need to take a fiction break and write a few more so I don’t have to stress about those. I need to get a couple book reviews out. Speaking of reviews…
Recently I had listened to Rendezvous with Rama. It’s a great concept, but he story is told with large data dumps and paper cut-outs of characters. The only real substance is the actual concept. So I’m onto Rama II. I remember reading this book when I was younger (I think 15 or 16) and I had liked it at the time. I’m listening to it on audio now. I’m a couple hours in an… nothing has happened yet. When I say nothing I mean there was a nearly 45 minute data dump on the Earth’s history to get us to that point in the story. Based on my experience this is most likely what Clarke added to the story. He’s great at data dumps and huge amounts of ‘telling’ a story. So far I don’t like any of the characters. There seems to be a great attempt to make them more than what they are. I’m bored with it. Seriously bored. To the point where I most likely won’t finish the story and I doubt I’ll continue on into books 3 and 4.
If you’ve made it through Rama II and the subsequent books, am I giving up too soon? Should I skip ahead? Will the books get any better? I hate books that dump information and drag the story on. So far 100% of what I’ve gotten through so far has added nothing to the story so I feel I’ve wasted my time. This book is suffering from bloat.
Sorry, just had to rant there for a moment. I think I’ll move on to another book before this one lulls my brain to sleep and starts to affect my writing.
Little tangent there. Sorry about that.
Oh, some curious news. I saw I had gotten a couple of hits when I mentioned Jay Lake in a post. My post about censorship. To his post today over at (http://www.jlake.com/blog/) he mentions a post he might not put up or will be censoring. This after I noticed someone came to my page after searching on Jay Lake. Curiouser and curiouser. Did Mr. Lake find my post? The world may never know.
HEY! Quick maintenance question. I have everything set up so if you are subscribed to the blog via email and reply to the email you get it should be adding a comment to the blog. That doesn’t not seem to be happening. If you’re getting these posts via email and have replied, I’ve never seen it and it didn’t post a comment to the blog. If you know how to fix this, please get a hold of me and let me know. I’ve already looked online and everything suggested to have checked in the options I’ve done. So color me confused.
I’ve got work to do and duck pictures to download.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: The writing on Of Gnomes and Dwarves begins
Yesterday was a good writing day. Almost 2000 words written. I like days like that. I got a tiny tiny start on Of Gnomes and Dwarves, but stopped. As soon as I realized that I didn’t want to main city to be named Wellshire anymore, I got a tiny bit stuck. So I’m going to spend a little time getting the names all in place, but the character descriptions filled out, make sure I have everything in place that might slow me down. I know the plot very well for the story.
Of Gnomes and Dwarves was the first book I had ever written. I started it in 1988 and had many false starts with it until 1997 when I actually got it done. Then I spent a couple years revising that story. It was a painfully long time to write a book, but I didn’t have the level of commitment that I have now. I also didn’t have the writing skill that I have now. I’ve written so many more words and I feel that I can now write the story that I always intended to write.
Maus, Willie, and Slick will finally see life. Reeg, Dorg, Hermin, and the entire cast of characters are just waiting for me to put pen to paper and write once more. When I had written these books (yes books) before I had written them at break-neck speed. I didn’t get them out they way I wanted. The characters took shape, yes. The story took shape, yes. But my voice wasn’t there. My storytelling wasn’t at the level I needed it to be to tell the story in the way that I wanted to tell it.
I feel I’m there now.
It’s not that I’ve run out of ideas. It’s not that I think Of Gnomes and Dwarves will be a multi-billion dollar best seller. It’s that this story is a very personal journey. I know I’ve got a great concept for the story. I’ve got fun characters. The pacing will be appropriate. I’m better at showing vs telling (something I still see in novels that will drive me nuts). I know now how to avoid the data dumps and tell the story that will provide the background of the characters. I’ll be able to get inside their heads as much as they’ve been inside my head over the years.
For 25 years I’ve had them all running around inside my head screaming, yelling, fighting, and waiting for their story to be told. I have a good idea how many books it will span. I have a majority of the storyline already plotted out for the books. I’ve got backgrounds for each character. Each event will build on a past that I’ve already laid out in my notes and build on the future of the characters. It’s all primed and ready for me to go.
So what’s been the hold up?
All these years I’ve listened to the saying “Don’t write about your D&D characters and adventures.” I’m breaking that rule now only in the fact that I’m putting my D&D Characters into a story. Not just a story, but a fantasy novel. The novel could happen with any group of characters. The fact that I already have personalities for my characters will just give the story that little bit of life that it has been lacking. Knowing how to get inside the characters heads and tell third person focused narrative will allow me to let the characters tell the story instead of me telling the story with the characters. I want to become invisible and let the story come through.
To say I’m a little bit excited about this project is an understatement. I’m convinced that I will finally be able to get this story out of my head. After all these years and all this time I’ve spent writing I will be revisiting a world that I left behind and haven’t visited in nearly fifteen years. I wrote four books and trunked them all. They’re now out of the trunk and will serve as notes, a plot outline, a guide. Little else. The writing isn’t terrible, but it’s not the voice I want to use to tell these stories. I can do better. I will be better. And the stories will be better for it.
I’m off to play softball today. I did start collecting duck pictures. I’ll get to posting those as soon as I write my duck post.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: It’s the little things.
I’ve always heard bigger is better. To an extend I subscribe to that concept. But big things can come in small packages.
Take for instance two little things that can in the mail. One yesterday and one today. Both made me extremely happy. The first was a 32GB USB drive. It’s actually smaller in size than the 4GB I was using, but it’s bigger where it counts. Of course I’m only using a very small portion of its capacity, but I’ll figure out what to do with it.
The other little item I got is even smaller. It’s a 32GB Micro SD. I have a xoom tablet that I use for everything these days except for writing. I had filled up a 16GB micro sd card and have made some music and video purchase I wanted to include on the card. It’s, obviously, the same size as the 16GB in physical dimensions, but with twice the capacity.
Now why did I buy myself a couple little things? I felt like I deserved it. Why did I deserve it? Because I hit my one third mark. I’m now 150,000 words into my 2012 goal. I bribed myself with a couple little gifts for hitting a goal. A little less than half of those words are new fiction, the rest would be blog posts.I can’t remember the last time I’d written this many words in a year and I’m just getting started. I’ve got big plans and here’s what I’m planning.
I’m going to finish up My Teacher is a Werewolf. I’m only about half way with that one, but should be able to knock it out quickly. I need to record the next episode of Golden West. That story is really shaping up. Left off on a couple good cliffhangers. Then I’ll be starting Of Gnomes and Dwarves. As much as I hate to do it, To Fall From the Sky just isn’t going where I want, it’s not keeping my interest right now, and it’s slowing me down. I need to get into a work that’ll excite me again and get me fired up to sit and write.
Speaking of getting fired up, I’m getting a little ahead of myself here. I’m going to do the complete read through/edit of Jack Kane and the Statue of Liberty. I won’t count that 100% toward my word goal, but I will count the edits/rewrites as 1/4 word for each word edited. So I need to edit at least 5000 words per day to hit my writing goal. I think I can manage that. Once those edits are done, I’ll fire that over to Mike who’ll give it his once over and then it’s off to Beta Readers.
Only then will I begin Of Gnomes and Dwarves. I love everything about those books. I know that I love them more than they deserve as the writing is utter crap. I’ve done some reads of the start. It’s bloated, very slow in parts, even slower in the beginning, but has a great story to be told. I won’t be changing the story much, but I will change how it was written, paced, and make it a stronger story. I started it over 20 years ago. I think I’ve gotten a little better at this writing stuff.
Once I finish with that, I’m going to write the sequel to V&A Shipping. No, I haven’t gotten the first picked up by a publisher yet. I had told myself long ago not to write any sequels until I’d gotten the first in a series published. But I’ve got a wonderful idea for the sequel and it’s just begging to be told. If you liked the first, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the second.
My plan, after those two, is to write the sequel to Astel. Again, this is a sequel that’s been banging on the side of my head for years and needs to be written. I put out Astel over a year ago and many people have asked where the next book it. It’ll be there soon enough.
That’s what I’ve got scheduled for the near future. I’m not going to try and plan too far out. I might sneak in another My Teacher is a… depending on how the second is received. My Teacher is a Zombie has gotten good reviews by those who’ve read it, but sadly sales aren’t there. I know I need to do a lot more about this self promotion stuff, but I feel I need a bigger body of work for people to pick and choose from.
I still have a couple short stories out there that I’m waiting on edits for. I have covers. They’re awesome! Once I get the edits, the ebook will be assembled and BANG! Out there.
But right now I’m just spending a lot of time talking about writing instead of actually writing. So…
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
J.R. Murdock 