Year 2, Month 1, Day 21 of this Writing in Public challenge.
Day seven of writing the novel Heaven Painted as a Christmas Gift.
Tonight I’ll do a little more detail around the writing, but there wasn’t much to do tonight due to the day at hand. And I’ll also compare the numbers from last year through 21 days to the numbers this year.
Day started off really, really rocky. We have an old cat who needed dental stuff, so Kris got out of bed around 6:30 a.m. to get him to the vet. I had been in bed about an hour at that point. A little after seven she woke me to help get the cat into the carrier. I went back to bed. She got back 45 minutes later, phone rang for some reason, and since I had the phone by the bed, that woke me up.
A couple more things like that before I finally rolled out around 12:30 to make a meeting at 1:30. I was exhausted, but Kris more so by a long ways. (Cat was fine, Kris picked it up after surgery later in the afternoon and all is great.)
So meetings from 1:30 until 6 p.m. Then I went downstairs to my office at WMG to work on some formatting of Smith’s Monthly before going home with Kris around 7 p.m. to have a nap with the white cat, dinner, news, and dishes.
I stumbled back up to WMG Publishing at 10 p.m. and did the cover for the Smith’s Monthly #13 that will have Heaven Painted as a Christmas Gift in it. Allyson and I found the art and agreed to it, so I did the Smith’s Monthly cover and she’s going to do the novel cover. Now I just need to finish writing it. (grin)
So home around midnight, then off to watch some television. Finally at 2 a.m. I got back into this office to do all the e-mail I had let go earlier in the day. I got that done around 3 a.m. and moved the white cat out of the writing chair into this internet chair and went to work.
First let me set the scene a little for you here in this office. Two chairs, one which has the white cat sleeping. My window over my file cabinets is open pretty wide and I can’t hear the oldies playing on my Sonos at all for the sound of the surf pounding on the beach.
I write on a big new iMac, huge screen with a second screen. I pulled up the novel file and went back about two chapters (1,800 words or so) from where I left off and started reading and messing with the book, adding in details and such as I moved forward to where I had left off. That took all of fifteen minutes and I added about 100 new words. I powered forward and managed to get done by 3:45 a.m. right at 1,000 new words total.
I took a short break, heading out to the kitchen and dumping out my iced tea for sparkling water and getting a breakfast bar (100 cal). Back at the novel, starting back about two hundred words and running at the spot I had stopped, managing right at 1,050 new words by 4:30 a.m.
Short break for more water and a tablespoon of peanut butter (about 90 cal). I was feeling exhausted, more so than I had been all day, but I really wanted to get another session done tonight. I sat down in my reading chair in the dark living room to rest my eye for a minute and almost instantly started to doze off. I caught myself and decided that the old towel needed to be tossed in for the night.
So 2,050 new words for the night, but honestly I’m pretty happy with that. Earlier on I was just thinking of taking the night off.
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Writing of the novel Heaven Painted as a Christmas Gift.
Day 1…. 4,600 words. Total words to date…. 4,600 words
Day 2…. 7,150 words. Total words to date…. 11,750 words
Day 3…. 4,300 words. Total words to date…. 16,050 words
Day 4…. 2,150 words. Total words to date…. 18,200 words
Day 5…. 1,100 words. Total words to date…. 19,300 words
Day 6…. 2,100 words. Total words to date…. 21,400 words
Day 7…. 2,050 words. Total words to date…. 23,450 words
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As you can see below, I am 12,100 original fiction words ahead of the same point in August last year.
My total in all areas this year after 21 days is 76,100 words for the month of August, 2014.
My total in all areas in 21 days in August 2013 was 64,800 words.
So doing better this August so far over last August. Still a third of the month to go.
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Totals For Year 2, Month 1, Day 21
– Daily Fiction: 2,050 original words. Fiction month-to-date: 43,700 words (31,600 by same date last year)
– Nonfiction: 00 new words. Nonfiction month-to-date total: 1,300 words (1,000 by same date last year)
– Blog Posts: 500 new words. Blog month-to-date word count: 12,900 words (15,100 by same date last year)
– E-mail: 14 e-mails. Approx. 400 original words. E-mails month-to date: 613 (557) e-mails. Approx. 18,200 words (17,100 by same date last year)
– Covers Designed and Finished: 1. Covers finished month-to-date: 5 Covers
For projects finished in the first year and links to the posts, click on the Writing in Public tab above.
For projects finished this month and where you can read them, click continue reading below.
Stories and Projects Finished This Month So Far
In order of production with the most recent at the top.
— Turned in the completed Smith’s Monthly #12 for proofing. It will be out in late September.
— Added endings and finished two stories, “Who’s Holding Donna Now” and “A Butchered Whale on a Red Bedspread.” Both will be in Smith’s Monthly #12.