May 2011
1 post
Bam
In June, I threw out everything that I had written on my novel so far and started fresh. At the time, I had been thinking about the book and dreaming and fretting over it for more that three years. Less than a year after we were married, my wife told me to sit down at the kitchen table and start writing already. Eighteen months later, I’d managed to eke out 50,000 words, about 160 manuscript...
July 2010
1 post
The big rewrite continues apace
And so it goes. Aimee thinks that Noah is loath to make phone calls, to try to find some higher-ups to stop the hospital bills long gone to collections. She is perhaps right, he at least admits to himself, at night when he sits on the couch in his pajamas alone. It’s true that Noah, in his own twisted way, is only prolonging things only trying to at least keep that small shred of...
January 2010
1 post
47,000 words
Three weeks since my last update. A lot has happened since then — some intense discussions between characters, an action scene. I’ve also (finally) figured out some of the motivations of my main character and (also, finally) outlined the rest of the book so I know at least where I’m headed.
I’m aiming now for 80,000 words, which I’ll probably overshoot a little, but...
December 2009
2 posts
Keep writing the same scene over and over — oh well, it seems to be getting a little better each time.
If God came down to visit them while they kneeled before the altar, would any of them know it? If God came down and spoke to them while they poured their hearts out to him, would any of them care?
Slow progress is still progress
Robin Sloan launched his Kickstarter project on August 26 with 4,500 words. By November 18, 84 days later, he had a stack of boxes filled with the printed book.
Now, granted, Annabel Scheme is a 30,000-word novella and not the huge beast I’m working on. (I passed 40,000 words the other night.) On the other hand, 84 days from start to finish is pretty impressive. I’ve been working on...
November 2009
2 posts
Making things shorter
I thought that filling a novel would be hard — how will I ever fill that many pages? — but now I see that’s not quite true. There are limits. I can’t describe everything, because if I don’t focus in enough there’s not going to be much room for a story. If I keep writing 1000-2000 word scenes, then I can only have 30 or so in my novel. That really limits things....
Um, progress?
Yesterday’s word count topped 35,000, which was nice. I’m hoping to make it 36,000 today.
Yes, it’s true that it’s National Novel Writing Month. I guess I’m sort of participating, since I’m writing a novel in November, even if I’m not playing by the official rules.