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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!

Daily Update: Well that was interesting.

Yesterday a couple of interesting things happened. If you’ve been on the web or follow those that I follow you’ll have seen the Tu-Pac holographic performance with Snoop Dogg. Now I’m not into Rap, hip-hop, Gangsta or anything like that, but seeing the video of Tu-Pac on stage years after his death fascinated me.

Then this morning Jay Lake put out his daily post talking about writing and comparing writing to learning to drive. I was going to be typing up an Unorthodox Writing Tip doing just that same. Great minds think alike I guess. I will still write up that UWT, but I will have a slightly different take on it.

Today is my father-in-law’s birthday. We’ll be heading over there and then off to my favorite daughter’s volleyball practice. Getting in my word count today will be a challenge. But it’ll be a great time. We used to live around the corner from them. Now it’s about a 20 minutes drive. It used to be that 20 minute drive to my favorite daughter’s school. Now we’re around the corner from her school, but further away from the in-laws. We’re saving a lot on gas, but there is less time at the in-laws’. My favorite daughter used to go over there every Wednesday after school to spend time with her Abuelos and her cousins.

Speaking of writing goals, I did hit my goal yesterday. I shifted my focus on my daily word count. Now my daily blog posts no longer count to my daily word goal. They will count toward my annual word count, but not the daily word count. For that I’m only going to count my fiction words. Yesterday I got in my 1200+ words and it felt great. I had been slacking on the word count numbers because I would see that I’d hit my goal and stop for the day. Last night I hit my goal and for the day I had over 2200 words, but that’s because I had a very long blog post.

I’m going to keep the word count spread sheet like this for the time being and see how it goes. This should help me focus more on fiction rather than these blog posts. I can type these up on auto drive. They’re easy to do, but I need to write more fiction. A lot more fiction. So expect to see many more words and works from me in the coming months. If I can help it, I’ll be even more productive than before.

I still have edits to do on Jack Kane, and I will be getting those hammered out as soon as I’m able. I have a couple pieces to finish and then I’ll get back into those. I’ve let them sit. Shame on me. That story needs to get cleaned up and sent out. I think it’ll do well once it gets into the real world.

Speaking of the real world…

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!