Chadzilla ROARS!!! (The Official Blog of Chadwick H. Saxelid, Writer)

The Month in Writing: April

On Monday, April 9th, I submitted my review of Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President to the Digital Concordian.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes...

Jack a dull boy.

All work...

...and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All Work and No Play makes Jack a Dull Boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play...

...makes Jack a dull boy.  All work, and no play, makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work, and no play, makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work, and no play, makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work, and no play, makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work, and no play, makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Yeah, it was that kind of month.  You want to know what I wasted several days, almost an entire week, doing?  Cleaning up and streamlining the categories on this blog.  Really.  Sheesh, all that writing time wasted.

But I was wasting time long before my little doodle project.  Using all of the personal hardships of a recent family event (with a wee tad sprinkle of international travel tossed across the top) was a great excuse/distraction from writing.  One that I have both used and abused.

I hid that abuse by changing my weekly writing updates to monthly writing updates.  But even the most cursory glance of the postings in the My Writing category will show you that I have not been doing anything for the past few months.

Sure, cleaning up and cleaning out (not to mention streamlining to 0% Posting Fat) all of my categories gave me a false sense of accomplishment, but I knew it was false.

So, I picked myself up, dusted myself off and refocused on my writing.

Wednesday, April 25th: 732 words.

Thursday, April 26th: 555 words.

Friday, April 27th: 191 words.  309 words beneath my temporary 500 word quota.

Sunday, April 29th: 456 words.

Monday, April 30th: 604 words.

No new stories were submitted or published in April, and I am still waiting to hear back about the two that are still out there.  There WILL be more writing to report on next month, I promise.

The Month in Writing: March

I really wanted to start the month off with a sale.  But that didn't happen.

On Sunday, March 4th, I got an email telling me that Battle Seance, one of the three short stories I currently have making the submission rounds, had been rejected.  So it goes.

Sunday, March 18th, I shot off my review of Sheri Holman's novel Witches on the Road Tonight, for the April issue of the Digital Concordian.

The Month in Writing: February

On Friday, February 3rd, I submitted my short story A Father's Love to Cemetery Dance Magazine.  I am probably taking the longest of long shots, but it is one well worth taking.

That brings the total number of stories I have "out there" to three.  The other two, Battle Seance and Sweet Sin, are both erotica stories.  So it goes.

The family emergency (which I described in about as much detail as I feel comfortable in a recent book review) continued to hound my wife and I throughout February.  It was not until President's Day Weekend that I began to feel as if my own head had been screwed back on correctly.  That was the weekend when all of the seemingly countless, and endless, disability forms were finally filled out and delivered to the East Bay Regional Center, so they could then forward said forms to the Social Security Insurance office.  

Having completed that painful task, my mind began to clear out enough so I could start focusing on this new writing career that I was supposed to have embarked on last year.

On Wednesday, February 22, I submitted my review of Paolo Bacigalupi's excellent science fiction novel The Windup Girl to the Concordian.  The review will appear in the online paper's March issue.

I wrote a new short story, titled Unwelcome Return, that should start making the rounds in March or April.  It is my hope that, by then, I will have another sale to post about.

So it goes.

The Month in Writing: January

New Year, new format, new pic:

You may have noticed a certain reliance on You Tube clips and book covers.  That is due in very large part to my New Year getting off to a chaotic and unpleasant start.  

In a January 18 posting I mentioned a family emergency that, at that time, was keeping me from writing reviews.  That emergency was my autistic (and mentally retarded) son having a psychotic break.  Dealing with a variety of doctors, facilities, and case workers (not too mention stress) pretty much fried my brain for the entire month.  Most of my writing and my reading (both for fun and for class) just went down the crapper.

But I am back now.  I ended the month by finishing and submitting an ageplay erotica story.  I really hope it sells, as it would help salvage the start of the New Year.

2011: The Year in Writing

Not much to report this year.  I wrote six or seven short stories and I started a novel.  I also sold one of the short stories I wrote to the anthology The Big Book of Bizarro, and I began a regular book review column over at the Digital Concordian.

Next year there will be more to report.  A lot more.  I promise.

The Week in Writing 35

"If you're gonna piss your life away writing some goddamn book that no one is ever gonna give a crap about, why did you have to involve my daughter? Let's say she gets pregnant. What are you gonna do? Three can't live on what you make. Two can't live on what you make."

Monday:  I submitted my review of Devil Red to the Concordian.  I also did some tinkering on A Father's Love and wrote another draft of Querida.

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday finishing an unfinished short story, working title: Sweet Sin.

Thursday:  I outlined some ideas for a developing story (working title: Something Wrong) and I also tinkered with an idea for a new short story, working title: Fogged In.

The Weeks in Writing 33 & 34

"It's what the people want!"

Last week, being Thanksgiving, was pretty much a washout.  I know that is really nothing more than an excuse, but I am going to stick with it.  I also managed to get my lethargic ass out of the house and down to Kaiser Mental Health and restarted my treatment for depression.  Doing that also helped to thin the oppressive black cloud that has been choking me of late.

Doing so also got me started writing again.

Monday:  973 words.  I started writing a somewhat fresh "new" story from the ashes of an older failed one (that would be Pipe Dream).  I also began working on my book review for the January issue of the Concordian.  By "working on" I really mean that I gulped down most Joe R. Lansdale's novel Devil Red in one or two sittings.  Reading Hap and Leonard's violent and comical misadventures always helps cheer me up.

Tuesday:  1,505 words.

Wednesday:  1,209 words.

Thursday:   I wrote the first draft of my review of Devil Red, for the Digital Concordian.

Friday:  I followed some advice from an editor that had rejected A Father's Love and did some minor, albeit necessary, cosmetic tinkering.  Mostly it was just trimming out some excessive dialog and adding in some more description in the second half.  The result, I think, is a leaner, meaner story.  One that I have decided to self-publish on the Kindle, as part of a small Dark Fantasy short story collection, in "early" 2012.  Early meaning June, at the latest.  I hope.

I also rewrote and sent off my review of Devil Red, for the Digital Concordian.

The Week in Writing 32

"Nope, nothing wrong here."

Thursday:  527 words that launched Draft 3 of my short novel, Pipe Dream.  Let's see how this one goes.

The Week in Writing 31

I kicked off the new work week by doing some pre-writing and research for Draft 3 of Pipe Dream.  That led to my coming up with some rather twisted wrinkles for the story.  Wrinkles I hope will work out.

After that I wrote a review of Debbie Macomber's final Cedar Cove novel, the Christmas themed 1225 Christmas Tree Lane , for the December issue of the Digital Concordian.

Then the week kicked me back and I got called in for Jury Duty.  Posts in the next few weeks may or may not be scarce.  It depends if I am plucked from the pool or tossed back.

The Week in Writing 30

I submitted A Father's Love to The Horror Zine.  It was rejected.  I also finished the first draft of a short story called The Session, which may or may not wind up being tossed into the discard file, and did more revision work on: Querida, A Perfect Child, and The Cure.

The Week in Writing 29

I began writing a new short story called "The Typist" and submitted a Flash Fiction short titled "Halloween Spirits" to the Necon eBooks Flash Fiction Contest.

Other than that, it was a quiet week.

The Week in Writing 28

A little change in the format this week, as I did somewhere between zero and none in the original writing department.  I spent most of the week nibbling at (or trying to nibble at) textbooks for my technial writing course.  When I wasn't doing that I was revising short stories for submission to who knows where.

At least I am still trying.

Hopefully I will have more news for you next week.  Maybe it will even be good news!

The Week in Writing 27

Saturday:  I wrote my monthly book review column for the Digital Concordian.  A review of Allison Kingsley's brand new cozy mystery novel, Mind Over Murder.

Sunday:  0 words.  I spent the entire day at California's Great America with the family, celebrating a newphew's 11th birthday.

Monday:  I spent revising numerous short stories.

Tuesday.  Another day spent revising short stories.  Nothing new to see here, folks.  Move along to Wednesday, please.

Wednesday:  1,194 words.

Thursday:  More revising.  Stories aren't written.  They are rewritten.

The Week In Writing 26

Saturday:  674 words.

Sunday:  0 words.  Not surprising, as I spent the entire weekend volunteering up at the family winery.  The free wine I get for doing so does compensate for the loss of any and all writing time.  Please, feel free to order and enjoy some our fine wine for yourself.  I recommend both the Picnic Hill and the Gold Hill.  The Gold Hill is a personal favorite of mine, by the way. 

Monday:  1,590 words.  Not bad.  To get my cold writing muscles warmed up I wrote a 437 word review of Moonstone's Kolchak Tales Annual #1, which went up on Wednesday.  The end of Monday had me feeling like I was fully back in the game, since I have done no writing for the blog in well over a week.

Then I checked the mail and found a rejection slip from Realms of Fantasy.  Now I have to find somewhere else to submit A Father's Love. Swell.

Tuesday:  403 words.  Ouch!

Wednesday:  698 words.

Thursday:  274 words.

Friday:  0 words.

All I can say about this week is that is has not been a good one for me.  The rejection (although not unexpected) hit me harder than I expected it would, and there are issues regarding my wife's still ongoing illness that arose on Thursday that just kicked both of us in the gut.  For most of the week a black cloud of depression has obscured my mind and drained me of my creative energy.  I know that this black cloud will thin and pass, it always does, it's just finding my way through and out of it that is so emotionally and intellectually draining.

But it can be done, and it will be done.

Total word count for the week:  3,041 words.

The Week in Writing 25

Saturday:  1,187 words.

Sunday:  0 words.

Monday:  1,292 words.

Tuesday:  1,370 words.

Wednesday:  2,899 words.

Thursday:  1,146 words.

Friday:  0 words.  Wife's birthday, nuff said.

Total words written this week (not including blog posts):  7,894 words.

The Week in Writing 24

Saturday:  0 words.

Sunday:  0 words.

Monday:  0 words.

Yep, the first three days of the week were pretty much the Funny Farm scene that began my very first Week in Writing update:

Although I will not be stopping the updates (which are an accountability exercise) I do have to admit that writing them has a discouraging effect on me.  "I haven't made my quota this week, I suck so bad.  I'm a failure..." and so on and so forth.

After giving it a great deal of thought, I have also changed my daily goal to a uniform 1,000 words a day.  If I am going to write, then I had damn well better write.

Tuesday:  A 974 word review of Airport '77, which posted last Wednesday.  Writing the review got my writing muscles somewhat warmed up enough that I could hammer out 506 words.  That's not much, but it got me writing again and that's a start.

Wednesday:  1,032 words and a 475 word review of Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters issues 4, 5 & 6, which posted yesterday.

Thursday:  1,843 words.  None of it for the UPRS, just some heavy revision work on my story Pipe Dream.

Friday:  1,822 words.  Again, it was all heavy revision work on my story Pipe Dream.  My ever being able to finish the damn thing is beginning to feel like a pipe dream.

Total words this week (not including the blog posts):  5,203 words.

The Week in Writing 23

Saturday:  0 words.

Sunday:  1,056 words.  I also wrote a 652 word review of the catastrophic creature feature bomb, Creature.  The review will be posted on Monday.

Monday:  1,050 words.  I also began rewriting my short novel, Pipe Dream.

Tuesday:  474 words.  Although I began to fall behind on my weekly quota (again) I just could not feel bad about it.  My wife had a complication from her recent surgery that required yet another surgery, so I spent most of the day sitting in a hospital room offering emotional and moral support to her.  That is far more important than any daily writing quota could possibly be.  Besides, I am only 420 words behind on my weekly quota.

Wednesday:  991 words.  Ouch!  Yes, while I am only nine words short of a full day's word quota, that shortage still makes me 429 words behind on my weekly quota.  Even worse, I have been called for Jury Duty.  While my wife is in the hospital.  This is week sucks.

Thursday:  0 words.  I was able to postpone my Jury Duty until November, so I was able to spend another day at the hospital with my wife, who is recovering nicely and more than ready to go home.  When I got the postponement, I could feel the stress from the last few days emptying out of me like I was some kind of deflating balloon, and I was fatigued yet energetic for the rest of the day.  

Both my wife and I thought that she would be able to go home on Thursday, but the doctor wanted her spend yet another night in the hospital, a decision that made her furious and me depressed, so I went home with our son and binged on Law & Order: Criminal Intent episodes.

Friday:  Wife came home and I sat down and pounded out 1,718 words.  Again, if I hadn't been so far behind on my weekly quota at the start of the day, then that total might have been impressive.  But this whole week has been a pretty tough one.  I do like how I rebounded, thought.  Got started on the final third of my UPRS while also doing some heavy revising of my short novel Pipe Dream.

Weekly minimum word quota goal: 6,000 words.

Total words written (not including my blog posts):  5,289 words.

Total words written (including my blog posts):   5,941 words.

 

The Week in (Non) Writing 22

Saturday:  527 words, written while staying in the Apple Cottage at the Sweetwater Inn in lovely and scenic Mendocino, California.

Sunday:  I wrote my 400 word book review for the October issue of the Concordian.  Being that October is the month of Halloween, I reviewed Adrienne Barbeau's novel Love Bites, her sequel to her debut novel, Vampyres of Hollywood. 

Monday:  0 words.  Disappointing, but not unexpected, since we spent much of the day on the road.

Tuesday:  0 words.  Not only disappointing, but inexcusable.

Wednesday:  361 words.  After two days of inactivity, my creative writing muscles were rusty.  I also wrote 574 word review of the horror-comedy Tucker and Dale Versus Evil, which will be posted this Monday.  Then I went to see Shark Night 3D, because I deal with depression in unique and silly ways.

Thursday:  2,653 words.  That would have been an impressive word count for a day that had not started off with my being 2,712 words behind on my minimum weekly quota.  So, let me shave 1,000 words off of that number (to count towards Thursday's allotted quota) and subtract the remaining 1,653 words from the 2,712.  The end of the day still had me 1,059 words in the hole.  I would have to write a minimum of 2,o56 words on Friday, just to make my quota.

Oh, and I also wrote a 765 word review of the unsurprisingly godawful Shark Night 3D.  That one gets posted on Wednesday.

Friday:  1,279 words.  I also wrote a 390 word review of Edge The Loner, which will post on Friday.

Weekly minimum word quota goal: 6,000 words.

Total words written (not including my blog posts):  5,220 words.

Total words written (including my blog posts):   6,949 words.

The Week in Writing 21

Saturday:  1,049 words.  An excellent start to the new writing week, no?  Not only did I meet my 500 word quota for both Saturday and Sunday, but I also shaved 49 words off of my Monday workday quota.

Sunday:  A 657 word review of the comic book collection Jonah Hex: Lead Poisoning, and a vigorous polish of the final draft of my short story, Battle Seance.  

On Sunday I was also made aware that a video commercial for The Big Book of Bizarro had been made.  Here it is:

The Big Book of Bizarro Video Book Trailer #1 by BurningBulb

My mom will be so proud!

You can order The Big Book of Bizarro simply by clicking on the appropriate and easy to find link in the Read My Published Writing section, which is located on the right side of the screen.

Monday:  1,770 words.  1,222 of those words were for my Untitled Paranormal Romance Story, the narrative pieces of which just keep clicking together.  I think it is now safe to say that it is looking like the first draft will be finished some time around the end of September, or the beginning of October.  (Whichever comes first.)  76 of those 1,770 words were revisions and changes to the outline for my developing UPRS.  I then typed up all of the vigorous polishes that I made to my short story Battle Seance and wrote a 647 word review of Hack/Slash issues #18 - 21, which posted on Wednesday.  

But I still felt the need to get some serious writing work done.  So I looked over the first draft of The Behemoth and fashioned a revision outline and started mapping out the second draft.  That's where the remaining 472 of the 1,770 words came from.

All in all, Monday was a workday that I feel damn proud of.

Tuesday:  1,619 words.  1,458 of them on the UPRS itself, while the other 161 were from revising and expanding the outline for said UPRS.  I also made the final corrections to Battle Seance, formatted the manuscript per editorial demand, and submitted it electronically.  Now, after doing all of that work, all I can do now is sit and wait to hear back from the editor.  

I also wrote a 274 word review of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre one shot comic Cut!, which will be posted on Monday.  I like my reviews to be a tad longer than 274 words, but there just wasn't all that much to write about.  So it goes.

Wednesday:  1,327 words.  After all of the power writing I did in the last few days, that amount seems almost like slacking off when compared to it.  But it would be a false comparison.  I also wrote a 665 word review of Crossed 3D Volume 1, which will post next Wednesday.

Thursday:  1,373 words.  Most of it felt like thrashing around, even though all of it inched the story forward.  The problem right now is trying to figure out how to show that the male and female protagonist are "perfect for each other" while I find a way to follow through on the framework I constructed to force them apart, then its all about having them overcome said conflict and reconnect for the "Happily Ever After" ending.  This is a Paranormal Romance Story, after all.

On the plus side, while this project is playing out, other story ideas are starting to flesh out in my mind.  So I will have plenty of stuff to keep my fingers busy for the rest of the year, at least.

Another bright side to the week is that, once again, I blew past my minium word quota goal before Friday.  Nice.

Friday:  1,119 words, plus a 588 word review of Tanya Huff's fantasy novel The Enchantment Emporium, which will be posted on Friday.

Weekly minimum word quota goal: 6,000 words.

Total words written (not including my blog posts):  8,257 words.

Total words written (including my blog posts):  11,088 words.

The Week in Writing 20

Saturday:  0 words, but I did write a 690 word review of David Grove's Making Friday the 13th: The Legend of Camp Blood.  That review went up on Wednesday.

Sunday:  1,204 words.  Wow, a respectable regular work day number.  One that not only got me caught up with the 500 words that I was supposed to have written on Saturday, but didn't, but that also put me 204 words ahead of my 1,000 word goal for Monday.  Not too bad.  Not too bad, at all.

Monday:  1,544 words.  1,127 of those words were for the Untitled Paranormal Romance Story that I have been writing.  I "think" that I am just past the half-way marker for this story.  But things might change.  The other 417 words were spent updating and revising the story's developing outline.  While I pretty much have all of the important points of the story mapped out.  How those important points will be connected together in the final story remains to be seen.  I also started revising a short story of mine titled Battle Seance.

Tuesday:  1,000 words.  With the end of the month just around the corner I realized that I still had to whip a short story into shape so that I could make an August submission, because I want to get into the habit of submitting a new work to a publisher at least once every month.  So I spent the entire day revising my short story Battle Seance, so that I could get it out on Friday, at the earliest, or on Monday, at the very latest.  It's a 3,000 word (11 page) short story and I did a heavy amount of revisions on each and every page of it, so I consider my daily writing quota to be have been well met, although I did not get around to doing any "original" writing.  So it goes.

Wednesday:  2,086 words.  As needless as it is for me to say, but I wish that all my writing days were this productive.  2,041 of those words were, once again, for my Untitled Paranormal Romance Story.  I  think that the massive amount of writing was due in large part to my mapping out all of the necessary plot beats for the remainder of the story on Tuesday.  The other 45 words were adjustments and notes added to my outline for the remainder of the story.  I like that I am about 111 pages into the story and, while the end is in sight, I still have some rich emotional and character ground to cover.  I'm not quite certain how far away the ending is, at this moment, but I think it is safe to say that this will be another short novel.  It's a good thing that there are e-publishers out there interested and willing to publish paranormal romance short novels.

I also did another rewrite of Battle Seance and am now on Draft 5 of that particular story.  I also wrote a 471 word review of the new (and not so good) Conan the Barbarian movie, which posted yesterday.

Thursday:  859 words.  While that final tally is 141 words short of my standard 1,000 word weekday quota, it nonetheless shot me 600+ words past my total weekly quota of 6,000 words.  So what ever I wrote on Friday would just be gravy.

Friday:  1,942 words.  That's a whole lotta gravy!  1,804 of those words were for my Untitled Paranormal Romance Story.  138 of them were adjustments, revisions and additions to said story's outline.  I am trying real hard to follow a three act structure with this story and I can tell that I am definitely somewhere "in the middle" of Act Two.  That means there might be another 75 to 100 pages left to write before I finish the first draft.  Only time and typing with tell.

I also did the final rewrite and polish of Battle Seance.  The story is now finished.  All I have left to do is give it one final proofread to triple check for any grammar or spelling errors, then it's good to go out into the world. 

Weekly minimum quota goal: 6,000 words.

Total words written (not including blog posts):  8,635 words.

Total words written (including blog posts):  9,796.  Wow, only 204 words short of hitting 10,000 words in one week.  Nice. 

The Week in Writing 19

Ick.  A bad writing week.   A real bad writing week.

Saturday:  0 words.  But I was attending the 90th birthday party of my wife's grandmother, which was held in Salem, Oregon and which was where I spent most the week.

Sunday:  63 words.  That is a rough guess, though, as I did not note precisely the amount I wrote.  It was just notes and such for my untitled paranormal romance short novel, though.  No real writing, though.  Too busy visiting the wife's extended family.

Monday:  0 words.  Again, visiting the wife's extended family, but I was beginning to resent myself for not trying to write at least a little bit.

Tuesday:  0 words.  The early portion of the day was spent travelling and the remainder of the day was spent fighting off the fatigue that resulted from it.  The wife also wanted to go see a movie, so we went and saw 30 Minutes Or Less, a movie that truly hated me and loved making me squirm in agony.  That's my review.

Wednesday:  404 words.  Finally started limping back to the working writer's life with a review of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford for The Concordian.

Thursday:  1,203 words.  A normal writing day, finally.  I also wrote a 502 word review of Fallen Angel issues #20 & 21, which went up yesterday.

Friday:  1,421 words.  I began the day hoping to push myself to meet my weekly quota, but that would mean writing close to 4,400 words in one day and I just could not do that.  But I did toss in a 774 word review of Final Destination 5, which will go up on Monday.

Weekly minimum quota goal: 6,000 words.

Total words written (not including blog posts):  3,091 words.

Total words written (including blog posts):  4,367 words.

I'm hating myself right now.

The Week in Writing 18

Okay, enough of these "life is hard" excuses.  I really need to work harder and focus more.  The clock is ticking and time is runnng out, regardless of what life throws at me.

Saturday: 637 words.  Not a bad count to kick-off the new work week.  I did some outlining and planning on my untitled paranormal romance story (76 words) before actually writing some more of it (561 words).  I not only inched past my minium quota for the day (500 words) but the untittled story moved past the 10,000 word mark.  Good beans.

Sunday:  634 words.  I also wrote a 487 word review of the first book in the Sidewinders western series, which posted yesterday, and that brought the entire day's word count to 1,121.  Not bad for a "lazy" Sunday afternoon.

Monday:  1,382 words.  1,289 of those words were for the as yet untitled paranormal romance that I have been working on.  The other 93 words were outlines for what looks to be should be Tuesday's writing.

Tuesday:  1,145 words.  While the word count is a tad on the low side for me, it was still a very good writing day, as I finished writing with lots of ideas for tomorrow's writing, something that always makes me happy and feel successful in an artistic sense.  Speaking being made to feel successful, my author's copy of The Big Book of Bizarro arrived (with check enclosed) in Tuesday's mail.  Another book for the vanity shelf, awesome!

If that were not enough, I also wrote a 629 word review of Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan's novel The Fall, the middle book of their Strain trilogy.  The review for that goes up on Monday.  Add it all together and that makes for a 1,774 word day.  Excellent.

Wednesday:  654 words.  While my ideas might have been plentiful, the time I spent writing them down was not.  So it goes.  But I also wrote a 673 word review of Creepy Comics Volume One, which will post on Wedesday, and brought the complete word count for the day to 1,327.

Thursday:  2,154 words.  The lack of writing last week really bothered me, so I decided to really push myself today.  Having a surplus of ideas for the in development (but still untitled) paranormal romance story also helped.

Friday:  0 words, thanks to travel prep.  More on that in next week's update.

Weekly minimum quota goal: 6,000 words.

Total words written (not including blog posts):  6,602 words.

Total words written (including blog posts):  8,391 words.

 

The Week in Writing 17

I know that you have to have heard the old saying, "Want to make God laugh?  Then tell Him your plans."  This past week was a wonderful example of how the fickle nature of random circumstance can muck up your plans.

With my son out of town and visiting his grandparents, my wife and I had a series of romantic weekend getaways planned, so I pretty much decided to take this week off from "serious writing" and just post a "Week in Writing" update of this week in next week's column.  

That did not happen, obviously.

Saturday & Sunday: 0 words.  The wife and I were in Monterey on Saturday and Sunday, and I did not get any writing done.  Nor had I planned to.  

Monday: 0 words.  I had planned to do some writing, but there was an unexpected family emergency in the middle of the night and I spent most of the day at the hospital with my wife, so, once again, no writing.  (The emergency was an unexpected gall bladder surgery.)  Since I was just sitting around and waiting for long periods of time, I did burn through a book and a half on my iPad Kindle app.

Tuesday:  I warmed up my cold writing muscles by writing a 702 word review of Ayn Rand's wretched novella Anthem, one of the books that I read on Monday.  The review goes up next Monday.

Wednesday:  0 words.  Wednesday had been the day that my wife and I were going to go up to lovely Mendocino for an extended stay.  While I had planned to do some writing and research up there,* the trip was more of vacation from the day to day grind of working at home.  However, due to that unexperted surgery on Monday, my wife could not handle the trip (which was not at all surprising or unexpected) and we had to cancel the trip.  So it goes.

Thursday:  1,567 words.  I finally sat down and got myself out of the planned rest and research groove and back into a working writer groove.  All of Thursday's work was on my developing paranormal romance story.  I also wrote a 585 review of the Masters of Horror second season episode The Damned Thing.  The review for that goes up on Wednesday.

Friday: 1,031 words.  Not a lot, but I hit my daily quota for the second day in the row and that is enough for me to end this particular "work week" on a somewhat positive note.

Weekly minimum quota goal: 6,000 words.

Total words written (not including blog posts): 2,598.  Ouch!

Total words written (including blog posts): 3,885.  Ouch!

*I am a big fan of regionalist writers, so I am creating a victional Northern California town in which to set or interconnect some of my stories and novels.  The town is a composite of my hometown of Alameda, the Point Reyes National Seashore, and all of my favorite Northern California towns: Bodega Bay, Inverness, Olema, and Mendocino.

So it goes.

The Week in Writing 16

Saturday and Sunday:  0 words.  I was volunteering up at the family winery on both days and, when I wasn't pouring wine and such, I was reading Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan's apocalyptic vampire novel, The Strain.  I do not give that as an excuse for my not writing.  It was simply how I passed the weekend away from home.

Oh, we also went and saw the surprisingly entertaining Captain America: The First Avenger.

Monday: 670 words.  Not great, but after two days of inactivity it took more than a little bit of effort to get the creative muscles working again.  I also wrote a 677 word review of The Strain, which was posted last Wednesday, after running a load of much needed personal and household errands.  The total for the day, 1,347 words.

Tuesday: 1,190 words.  Much better, in that it was all for my untitled paranormal romance story and the word count inched 190 words past my minimum quota for the day.

Wednesday: I typed up a portion of my short story Querida and did some revision work on a short story called Battle Seance.  Both are close to finished, so they should both be going out this August.

Thursday: 962 words.  I finished typing up my short story Querida and finished the latest round of revising on my short story Battle Seance.  I set those two stories aside to cool and went back to work on my untitled paranormal romance story.

Friday: 1,894 words.  I did some more work on my untitle paranormal romance story and revised another short story title The Cure.

Weekly minimum quota goal: 6,000 words.

Total words written (not including blog posts): 4,716 words.  Ouch!

Total words written (including blog posts): 5,393. Meh.

 

The Week in Writing 15

Saturday, Sunday & Monday: 0 words.  But I finally FINISHED typing up that old handwritten document.  I also know that the low word count will also reflect my growing need to focus on my technical writing course.  So it goes.

Tuesday:  I outlined my character and story ideas for revising the handwritten document that I just typed up.  Let's say that was five hundred words of handwritten material.  I also submitted my short story A Father's Love (via snail mail) to Realms of Fantasy magazine and wrote a 653 word review of A Nightmare on Elm Street (comic book) issues 5 - 7, which was posted last Wednesday.

Wednesday: 1,243 words.  This was the first time that I have worked off something akin to an outline and it felt strange.  Nonetheless, this was the first time that I truly felt that I was back in the writing groove in almost a week.  Also helping was that my writing on Tuesday and Wednesday not only got me caught up on my weekly writing quota, it nudged me a bit ahead of it.

Thursday:  313 words.  Ouch!  But I was on the road for most of my prime writing time.  I also wrote a 691 word review of Hark!: A Novel of the 87th Precinct, which was posted yesterday.

Friday: 1,551 words.

Weekly minimum quota goal: 6,000 words.

Total words (not including blog posts): 5,158  (Close enough to my minimum goal to avoid total embarrassment, just not close enough to escape utter disappointment in myself...)

Total words (including blog posts): 6,502  (Thank goodness those two reviews helped get me over my minimum goal, though.)

So it goes.

 

The Week in Writing 14

Saturday AND Sunday: 0 words.  Family obligations, Tech. Writing homework, and "other stuff" pretty much had me taking the weekend off from writing.  That put me 1,000 words behind on my weekly "minimum writing" quota when I sat down at the writing station on Monday morning.  Yuck.

Monday: 1,780 words.  I finished the first draft of my short story Querida and then did some pre-writing (i.e. fleshed out a developing outline, created some character bios for said idea, etc.) for a possible "short" novel.  The project is still in the development phase, though, and it is only going by the title Untitled Romance Novel right now.

Yeah, ROMANCE Novel.  What of it?  What is important to me is that I finished Monday only 220 words behind my minimum writing quota and not 3,000 words behind it.

I also got a rejection slip from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science-Fiction regarding my short story A Father's Love.  So it goes.

Tuesday: 2,508 words.  I think it is safe to say that I got caught up.

Wednesday (also my 44th birthday): 0 words.  I took the day "off" to celebrate my birthday.  The reason I use quotations is because I did spend a lot of time typing up an old handwritten manuscript.

Thursday:  I wrote my column for the Digital Concordian, a 400 word review of Emma Donoghue's novel Room.  I also did some more typing up of that old handwritten manuscript.  It embarrasses me at how bad the writing is in some of it.

Friday: 0 words, but I typed at least a good fifty pages of my handwritten manuscript, so let's just say I did 2,000 words worth of work.

Fresh stuff next week.

Weekly minimum quota goal: 6,000 words.

Total words (not including blog posts): 4,688 words.

Total words (including blog posts): 4,688 words.

The Week in Writing 13

Saturday: 0 words.

Sunday: 1,590 words.

Monday: 885 words.

Tuesday: 1,302 words.  I also wrote a 443 word review of Fallen Angel issues 17, 18, and 19.  That one goes up on Monday.

Wednesday: 997 words.  I also wrote a 574 word review of Friday the 13th: How I Spent my Summer Vacation, which will go up on Wednesday.

Starting the online class last Friday and getting a daily reminder that I am only living a pipe dream for a very the short moment (and loving the hell out of it) seemed to be messing with my creative mojo.  The many troubles that I was having revising the behemoth were certainly not helping, either.  It was not until Tuesday that I felt that I had created a new work pattern that fused my dreams of being a writer with the realities of the Technical Writing course.  Two or more hours in the morning spent doing my real writing (i.e. the "creative stuff").  Then a break for lunch before I hit the books and the online courses for two hours or more hours.  After that, I allow myself to kick back and read.  Some of the reading is for fun, some of the reading is for my column at the Concordian.

But the erratic nature of the work week made for some concerns.  So I added up where my daily quotas would have me at by Wednesday : 4,000 words (500 for Saturday, 500 for Sunday and 1,000 words on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday).  Then I added up all the my non-blog related writing for the week up to that point:  4,774 words.  Even with the interference of the class and my erratic creative work schedule, I was not only reaching my quota, but staying ahead of it.  That got me calmed down somewhat.  I wish I could say the same thing about this online course, which looks to be far more work than I thought it would be.

Thursday: 2,310 words.  2,000 or so of those words was the "first draft" of a short story that I am developing for a particular anthology that has put out a call for submissions.  The story should turn out to be my July submission.  The other three hundred or so words are the beginning of a somewhat comedic dark fantasy story.  I have never written comedy, at least intentionally, so the story is an interesting test of some different creative muscles.  No work done on the behemoth.

Friday: I took the morning off and watched John Carpenter's The Ward on VOD.  While I enjoyed the film for what it was a lot more than my 627 word review might seem to say, I don't think it is going to enjoy a reevaluation as some kind of "minor" classic of the genre any time soon.  Now that I think about it, the reevaluation of Ghosts of Mars doesn't seem to have happened yet, either.  My review of The Ward will be posted next Friday.

I also did some "pre-writing" for a possible "third" draft of the behemoth.  This was basically a free writing exercise where I described who the principle characters were and their motivations.  I also looked over various notes and drafts and did some free writing of all the ideas (both old and new) that I have had to date regarding this project from Hell.  I wrote about four pages, but did not count the words.

After my pre-writing exercise, I did some work on a new short story that I am writing.  The title of the story is, at this moment, Querida (which is a hell of a lot better than the first one I thought up: The Date).   This time I did count what I wrote: 445 words.  Although that seems pretty light, I started the work day several thousand words ahead of my quota, so even "falling short" of my 1,000 word quota for the day (which I really did not, if you count the four pages of drafting and outlining AND the 627 word review of The Ward that I also wrote) I was still WAY ahead of my minimum quota.

Weekly quota: 6,000 words.

Total words (not including Blog posts) written this week: 7,529.

Total words (including Blog posts) written this week: 9,173.

The Week in Writing 12

Last weekend marked a first for me.  Once a month the wife and I drive up to Plymouth to work at the family winery, so my in-laws (her parents) can get some much needed time off to rest.  What was a first for me was that I brought my computer with me so I could continue working on my writing while we were there.  Usually I just bring a notepad with me and a short story to revise, and I usually get very little to absolutely nothing done.

But Saturday morning I sat down and knocked out 1,020 words.  That's 520 words over my minimum goal for the day, so even if I didn't get any work done on Sunday (and I did not expect to, as we were going out to breakfast that day and I knew that would eat all of my writing time) I still wrote a full weekend's worth of words.  Success!

Sunday: 0 words.  Just read the parenthetical in the previous paragraph again, okay?

Monday got off to a rough and humiliating start.  I was involved in my very first fender bender.  Lucky for me there was no damage to the car that I bumped into (that I could see, at least) but it rattled me and I spent most of the morning trying to figure out how to report this to my insurance company.  

Once that was done, I struggled with the behemoth: 1,104 words.  I then took a lunch break and read issues fifteen through twenty-one of Gravel.  After I finished eating and reading, I wrote a 617 word review of the Gravel story arc, which went up yesterday.  Then I went back to wrestling with the behemoth and knocked out an additional 822 words, for a total of 1,926 words written (or revised) on the behemoth.  Add the review written for the blog and the total word count for the day came to 2,543.  Nice.

Tuesday: 2,138 words.  Each and everyone of them for the behemoth, which has grown to over 46,000 words and 220 pages.  Nice.  After that I wrote a 484 word review of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (comic book) issues six, seven, and eight.  That review goes up on Monday.  Add it all together and it made a 2,622 word day.  Double plus good.

Wednesday brought a 488 word review of the final eight issue of the Manhunter series, which will get posted this Wednesday.  There was also a lot of headache inducing wrestling with the behemoth, as I reach a point rife with wrong turns and unnecessary digressions:  1,326 words.

On Wednesday I also heard back from one of the editors of the anthology The Big Book of Bizarro.  My short story "Their Quiet, Bookish Life" will definitely be included.  Great news, that.

Thursday I formatted the final draft of my short story "A Father's Love" and mailed it off to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.  Now it is just wait and see in that front.  I also wrestled with the behemoth: 1,980 words.   I cut and revised and reworked page after page after page for several hours and (finally) seemed to get a page or two past what looks like the current halfway point of the story.  I think.  The work is only going to get harder and more painful, though, as I try to weave together more threads from the first draft that had meandered off into non-starter territory.  I also wrote a 555 word review of Star Trek New Frontier #11: Restoration, the third and final book in the New Frontier series Excalibur trilogy.

Friday I went back to school by starting an online Technical Writing Certificate Program.  Yes, at some point I will be supplementing my creative writing projects with technical writing jobs.  So it goes.  That caused enough of a distraction that I did next to no work on the behemoth: 216 words.  Ouch.

So that was the week.  Have a happy and safe Fourth of July.

Cover design for The Big Book of Bizarro, edited by Rich Bottles Jr. and Gary Lee Vincent

Here is an early working cover design for Rich Bottles Jr. and Gary Lee Vincent's anthology The Big Book of Bizarro, which, I just learned, will contain my short story "Their Quiet, Bookish Life".

The Week in Writing 11

Saturday: I kicked off the day with a 832 word review of the excellent Norwegian monster movie Troll Hunter, which went up last Wednesday.  After that I wrestled with the behemoth for an hour or two: 667 words.  Damn good writing day.  I love it when a new writing week gets off to strong start.

Sunday (Father's Day): 0 words.

Monday: 1,932 words.  Another strong day.  Yes!

Tuesday: I wrote a 430 word review of Sarah Blake's historical melodrama The Postmistress for the July issue of the Digital Concordian.  After that I wrote a 617 word review of Kolchak: The Night Stalker Files #1, which went up yesterday.  Then I took a short lunch break before I went back to wrestle with the behemoth: 2,136 words.  Add it all up and that is a massive 3,183 word day.  Huzzah!

Wednesday: 2,051 words.  Although I have been cutting and pasting and consolidating the behemoth like mad (and have the final structure of the story locked in my mind) it keeps growing, despite my cutting and consolidating characters and events.  The story is now around 205 pages long and it looks to grow even longer, although "less" seems to be happening.  I think that makes sense.  I don't know.

I also did a "final" polish of The Sacrifice and gave it a much better and far more appropriate sounding title: A Father's Love.  Although I did far more tinkering on the tale than I had anticipated I would be doing on a 15th draft, I know that I have smoothed out the last of the plot wrinkles and clunky sentences.  The story is still on track to be zipping out in the mail this Friday.  Hooray!

Thursday: 1,762 words.  Nice.  Even taking into account that I took Father's Day off, I think this week is one of the best writing weeks I have had so far.  The behemoth seems to be coming together quite nicely.

Friday: I warmed up the old writing muscles (cliche alert) by writing a 493 word review of Fallen Angel issues 14, 15, and 16, which goes up on Monday, as well as a 1,037 word review of the atrocious The Tree of Life, which goes up on Wednesday.  Then I went to battle with the behemoth again: 1,540 words.  I have also reached a point in the manuscript where I began sliding off the rails by tossing in some half-baked "subplots" to distract myself from the simple fact that my story had taken a wrong turn, so some really major (and I do me major) rewriting is going to be done next week.

I'll let you know how it goes next week.  Until then...

The Week in Writing 10

Saturday: 413 words.  Those words began my revision of the 35,000+ word behemoth sitting on my desk.  Wish me luck on finishing that, okay?

Sunday: 237 words.  Again, the words were part of my revision of that 35,000+ word behemoth that is, more and more, looking like a plotless and pointless exercise attempt at "social realism".  When I get the characters consolidated and whatever the hell is passing itself off as a plot tightened, I am going to show it to my wife and tell her, "My gut says toss it in the trunk, what do you think?"  Maybe she will see something that I do not.  Stephen King's wife saved Carrie from the wastebasket, after all. 

Then again, I am only 650 words into making the second draft.

On Sunday I also wrote a 766 word review of the dreadful but nonetheless fun Super 8, which went up last Tuesday.  My posting on Tuesday has become kind of rare, but the standard Monday-Wednesday-Friday review slots had already been consumed by my reviews of The Walking Dead and I did not want to push the review of Super 8 into next week.  I was also not all that happy with the entire week being taken over by a single subject matter, so I tossed in the review to give the posts some variety.  You may have also noted that I have now started to clump together all the various videos I like to post here on Sunday.  From now on  that will be the go to day for movie music, trailers, moments of BOO or LOL, and Classic Moments of Cinema.  In the afternoon I wrote a 721 word review of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.  That review will go up on Monday.

Add together all of Sunday's revising and blogging and that is 1,724 words.  So why did I end the day feeling like I had not written anything?  Weird.

Monday got off to a rocky start, as that feeling of having lost my way in revising the 35,000+ word behemoth kept me off my writing game.  I did figure out where I had made my wrong turn and went back and fixed it.  Total word count for the day: 1,016.  Not a one of them for the blog, either.  :)

Tuesday I revised The Sacrifice, using the recommendations and notes given to me by my test reader friend.  That put the story about one or two (at most) drafts away from being submission ready.  So The Sacrifice looks to on track to start making the submission rounds to magazines and anthologies by the end of next week.  Yes!

Optimistic and energized, I then turned my creative attention to the behemoth (which is now my official nickname for the 35,000+ word manuscript sitting atop my desk) and I spent several hours wrestling with it.  The end result of that was a 1,807 word day.  Not too shabby.

Wednesday I continued wrestling with the behemoth: 1,524 words.

Thursday: 577 words.  Well, not really.  Truth be told I did so much cutting and pasting, and consolidating and revising, and moving of bits and pieces and whole chunks around the behemoth that I stopped focusing my attention on the amount of writing (i.e. "word count") that I was doing and just focused on getting the massive amount of work that needed to be done that day done.

Mission accomplished on that front, and I was pooped when I finally reached my stopping point for the day.

Friday: 475 words.  Ouch!  But Friday was a planned in advance family outing day, so I had precious little writing time.  Forty-five minute to an hour, tops.  I put it to good use, wrestling with the behemoth and inching forward through the manuscript, but I could (and felt I should) have spent the entire day doing that.  I take that as a good sign that there is plenty of life in the project.

Well, that's it for this week.  Tomorrow is Saturday and that begins a new work week.  I look forward to it.

Have a happy.

The Week in Writing 9

In last week's update I believe that I mentioned I was not going to do any "new" writing, other than posts for this blog, for a little while.  My reason for deciding to do so was so I could get "caught up" with the seven or eight stories that I am currently working on and get them all submission ready.  I also really have to get busy working on my next book review column for the July issue of the Concordian.  That means curling up with a (I hope) good book and doing nothing but reading for two or three days.

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday I stuck with that writing plan.  I did major revision work on the two short stories that I am closest to finishing, The Sacrifice and The Cure, and I wrote a 631 word review of Woody Allen's new movie, Midnight in Paris (which went up on yesterday).  I also wrote a 673 word review of The Walking Dead, Volume 9: Here We Remain (which will go up on Monday).  

But all that work left me feeling a bit unfulfilled.  On Monday ideas and images started bubbling around in my imagination.  A new story was starting to form.  I love that feeling.

So, on Tuesday, I opened a doc file of a failed attempt at some flash fiction (there was just too much story to fit into the 100 word limit) and I wrote the first 1,167 words of a short story.  The working title for this particular story is A Perfect Child.  While I love that title, it might change when I start the revision process.  Buy my creative gut is telling me that the title is a keeper.  After starting that story I spent the afternoon writing a 556 word review of The Walking Dead, Volume 10: What We Become (which will be posted on Wednesday).  

The review I wrote on Tuesday afternoon put me 27 words into my 1,000 word writing goal for the next day.  So, if I had wanted to, I could have slacked off last Wednesday and just written a mere 973 words.  I didn't, though.  After finishing off my huge stack of The Walking Dead back issues, I wrote a 780 word review of them (that goes up next Friday).  After that "relaxing" bit of foolishness, I returned to A Perfect Child and added another 1,110 words to the story.  That burst of creativity got me well past what felt like the halfway point of the story and, coupled with the review I wrote, it made for a 1,890 word day.  Not bad.

On Thursday it only took me 597 words to finish the first draft of A Perfect Child.  For those keeping count, the word count on the first draft came to 3,031 words.  After finishing the story and taking a much needed breather by attending the talent show at my son's school, I went over some notes a friend of mine sent me after he read my most recent draft of The Sacrifice.  I was quite pleased to find that his notes only pointed out problem areas that I had already been aware of and that I had been planning to address and fix in the next revision.  I also began to toy with a short story currently titled The Ghost Hunter's Story, but that title will definitely be changing.  Because the title character has turned a ghost story writer, not a ghost hunter.

He could very well change back into a ghost hunter, though.  I do not know yet.  I do have some ideas for a haunted house story, but this particular story does not really gel with that idea.  That is due to the title character and the young woman he is telling his story to having lives outside of the confines of the story as it exists now.  Those outside lives keeps pushing into the story and, as I worked on the story all day Friday, I began to see that I was not really working on a short story, but on a chapter.  Glancing over the two early drafts of this story and the notes that I had made in the margins of those early drafts, I began seeing the story as a smaller piece of a much larger whole.  I also saw that the outside lives of the two characters fit pretty seamlessly with the lives of two characters from the 35,000+ word story that began my current adventure in career change.  The click was so smooth and solid that I simply could not ignore it.

I guess that means I that, without even meaning to, I began revision work on the 35,000+ word behemoth sitting on my desk.  I had really thought that I would be waiting until July, at the earliest, to start struggling with that beast.  But my imagination was thinking different, obviously.

The Week in Writing 8

It has been eight weeks, already?

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were taken up by Baycon 2011 and I did not get any writing done.  I did bring some with me, just on the off chance that I would actually sit down in my hotel room and do some writing.  That has to count for something, doesn't it?

Well doesn't it?

On Tuesday I wrote a 1,412 word blog entry about our trip to Baycon 2011, which I posted yesterday.  When I first launched my "Creative Career" I thought that it would be best to not count my blog postings.  But, after further consideration, and hearing quite a few comments made by various writers at Baycon about how blogging can and should be considered a marketing tool for writers, I decided to start counting my blog postings.  So that 1,412 word blog entry I wrote about our trip to Baycon 2011 on Tuesday counted as my writing for the day.  I not only met my 1,000 word quota for the day, but I also managed to whittle 412 words off of the 500 words that I did not write on Saturday, when we were at Baycon.  

I also started revising my short story "The Sacrifice".  The revisions were major ones, so I spent most of Wednesday afternoon hammering away at the story and chipping off the excess garbage.  Right now it is looking to be a 5,000 word story, which is a good and solid length, IMHO.  I also wrote a 949 word review of Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre: The Best of H. P. Lovecraft for the blog.  That review will be posted on Monday and the hate mail caused by it should start showing up in my in-box on Tuesday.  How is that for a tease?

On Thursday I continued the major revision work on "The Sacrifice".   I spent more than three hours hammering away at it until I finished Draft 11.  While there is still a heavy amount of work that needs to be done on the story, I think all of the massive cutting and pasting and trimming and shuffling to streamline all the areas where I just said the same thing over and over again is done with.  But even with all the cutting and trimming in between all the shuffling and pasting and consolidating, the story's word count remains a tad over 5,000.  

Although I did not technically start revising the 35,000+ word "big project" that took up most of my morning writing time during the weeks leading up to our trip to Russia, I did make some notes about what I think needed to be cut, what needed to be turned into backstory, and what the true focus of the story should be.  I also came up with a far better title than "Pipe Dream", which has been the project's title for the last 17 years.  I like the new title more than the old one, as it has a far stronger connection to the central character than the original one, but I am going to refrain from sharing it until I am closer to the story's finishing point.  Things Change, you know.

I also wrote a 588 word review of Lady Death issues 0 through 5 on Thursday.  That will go up next Wednesday.

On Friday morning I vanished down the rabbit hole of the Internet tubes and cleaned out the dead spots on this blog.  While looking at some of the older/oldest posts on this thing, I noticed that there were a ton (and I do mean a ton) of discontinued YouTube videos taking up way too much archive space.  So I cleaned out and tidied up Classic Moments of Cinema, Odds n' Ends, Movie Trailers, and various other archives that had way too many dead videos cluttering up the memory.  I did not delete anything that had comments on it, though.  My readers seem to be a tight-lipped bunch and I like keeping the comments around, even when they happen to be commenting on something that isn't there anymore.

I still hold out the hope that a community of comment makers will form here and start a conversation amongst themselves, but that hasn't happened yet and this blog isn't getting any younger.  It will be six years old this September, in fact.  Then again, I am kind of all over the place, focus wise, so that might be keeping the frequent commentators away.  Not that I noticed, you know.

Sniff.

Anyway, on Friday afternoon I got back to work and revised two short stories, "The Sacrifice" and "The Cure".  A few drafts back I had started guessing that "The Sacrifice" (based entirely on the huge amount of cutting and pasting and consolidating of needless repetition that I knew needed to be done) would take at least 15 drafts to whip into submission ready form.  Looks like my guesstimate was a correct one.  I am now hoping to have it ready to send out by the end of the month.  "The Cure" is currently tracking to be submission ready some time in July.

I think that you may have noticed that I did not do a whole lot of word counting this week, other than for my blog postings.  The reason for my doing so is that I was not doing any original writing this week.  I currently have eight writing projects (which includes that 35,000+ word "Big Project") that I really need to focus on and finish.  So I think that June and July will mostly be a time of revising, rewriting, and even my doing some research.  (Research is something that I have not done before, as the short stories I have written did not require any.)  All of the revising and rewriting portion are for the eight projects that I have to finish.  The research is for an idea of mine that just might turn into my next "Big Writing Project".

We shall see.

The Week in Writing 7

Well, the Rapture and Judgment Day were a no show, although Harold Camping is proclaiming that it did, in fact, happen.  I tell you, senile dementia is not pretty.  

After what felt like a serious stumble last week, I finally managed to get back into what felt like my old writing groove and had a rather eventful week in writing:

The Saturday of Non-Judgment: 560 words.  Sunday: 0 words.  Monday: 1,942 words.  Monday's word count covered my lack of work on Sunday (I have a 500 word writing minimum for Saturday and Sunday) and it almost covered half of my 1,000 weekday minimum for Tuesday, which was good because Tuesday's word count was a mere 680.  The reason for that was due to my hitting "The Wall" on my 35,304 (for now) word/177 page writing project.  That wall told me that I had reached the end of the story as I could see it.  That my mind was already beginning to circle back and start trying to figure out how to make the various threads all weave together into a tighter and more readable fashion was the other hint.  For better or for worse I had reached the end of this particular draft of this particular story and it was time for me to move on.

But move on to where, exactly?  That was the question buzzing around in my head all Tuesday afternoon.

Wednesday I wrote a 400 word book review column for the next edition of the Concordian, a local monthly paper.  On Thursday I polished the final draft of my short story "Their Quiet, Bookish Life" and wrote reviews of Night of the Living Dead Annual: 2011 and Hack/Slash: Me Without You for the blog.  The Hack/Slash review will be posted on Monday. 

I pretty much took yesterday off.  The only thing I did on Friday was a final read through and spell check on "Their Quiet, Bookish Life" before submitting it to editors of an upcoming anthology called "The Big Book of Bizarro".  Right now my fingers and eyes and legs and arms and even some of my toes are crossed, as I hope the editors like it and decide they want to publish it in their anthology.

If not, then I will just have to submit it to some other anthology publisher or magazine.  I think it's a damn good story, so I am certain it will find a home somewhere.  I just have to find it.

Oh, and I also wrote a review of the first two issues of Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters, which will be posted on Wednesday.

By the time this posts my wife and I (with son tagging along) will already be at Baycon 2011.  In honor of that, I close this Week in Writing update with a great clip from The Whole Wide World, where Robert E. Howard (the always excellent Vincent D'Onofrino) describes his character Conan to Novalyne Price (Rene Zellweger):

The Week in Writing 6

Are you still here?  I certainly hope so, for I have many more miles to go before I can sleep.

Speaking of sleep.  Lack of sleep and the haze of jet lag knocked the creative legs out from under me this week, as my word count shows.  Saturday: 0 words.  Sunday: 0 words.  Monday: 83 words.  Tuesday: 1,591 words.  (Now that is more like it!)  Wednesday: 1,723 words.  Thursday: 1,262 words.  Friday: 1,505 words.  I also did some major revising on a short story that I have titled "The Cure" and completed a short short called "Their Quiet, Bookish Life" that I hope to begin submitting next week.

If there is a next week, that is...

As much as it would amuse me to blame the distraction of all this "End of the World" nonsense coming out Harold Camping's Family Radio broadcasts, that is not the case.  When my wife and I left for our vacation trip to Russia I took some writing and notepads with me with the honorable intention of getting "at least a little" writing done during the tour.  I got almost no writing done, actually.  All I managed to do was scribble about a page and a half during the plane flight out to New York City.  After that, nothing.  Zero.  Zip.  Nada.

When we left I thought that I had made enough headway into "my novel" that I would be able to come back and pick-up where I had left off.  That was not the case.  When I sat back down at my work station and opened the file, what I saw was gibberish that read like someone else had written it.  While I have been typing away and adding words to it, I have felt as if I have only been spinning my wheels.  It feels like some kind of creative existential crisis.  I feel like Don Quixote chasing non-existent windmills.  I feel like a complete and utter failure.  

That I have three short stories completed (or nearly so, there are still a few revisions and polishes that need to be made on two of them) means nothing to me.  What I focus on is loosing my way on the "big" project and the question as to whether or not I even have another "big" project in me.

What started all of this, I guess, was watching Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger on the flight back from New York City.  I watched that movie and tried not to see myself as being a real life Roy Channing (Josh Brolin).  That could not be further from the truth, I am a far better person than Allen's fictional loser.  But right now, looking at well over one hundred and sixty pages of I don't know what it is that I have been writing, that is precisely how I feel.

But I am not going to give up.  NO!  I am going to keep hammering away at this keyboard.  So there!

The Week in (Non) Writing 5

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

I'm back!  Did you miss me?

I missed a lot of writing, but I was far too busy enjoying a trip to Russia with my wife.  I am way too jet lagged (we got back home last night at midnight and my body has no idea what time it is supposed to be right now) to try and encapsulate the trip in today's post.

Let me just say that it's great to be home and if you ever get the opportunity or desire to visit Russia, you should do so.  It is a fascinating and beautiful country.

The (Abbreviated) Week in Writing 4

As I mentioned in The Week in Writing 3, I will be away from my workstation for awhile doing something else.  I will still be writing, but I will not be able to post how much (or little) writing I have done from May 5th all the way through to May 13th.  That also goes for reviews.  I promise to let you know all about it when I return to my computer, on the 14th or 15th.  Until then, try to enjoy the archives.

As far as this (abbreviated) week in writing?  Saturday: 769 words, Sunday: 713 words, Monday: 1,494 words and Tuesday: 1,157 words.  I am now 26,638 words (or 131 pages) into my manuscript and am still "going strong".  In addition to the fiction writing, I also wrote a review of the first two episodes of the new season of Doctor Who, which I posted yesterday.  I hope you liked it.

The Week in Writing 3

This was not a good week for me or for my writing.

Saturday: 0 words, Sunday: 0 words, Monday: 943 words, Tuesday: 1,654 words, Wednesday: 1,431 words, Thursday: 0 words, and Friday: 1,352 words.  I also wrote two new reviews for the blog, but did no revising or rewriting..  All in all it was not a very productive week for me.

The reason for my not having written anything on either Saturday or Sunday was that we (the wife and I) were in Las Vegas to celebrate a mutual friend's 40th birthday.  I brought some writing and some notebooks, but just never managed to make myself sit down and work.

While we were in Vegas I began to not feel well.  I thought that this might be due to the fact that I just was not enjoying the city.  I don't drink all that much, maybe a glass of wine at dinner, at most, and I do not gamble and the area of Las Vegas that we were in those were the only two things to do.  After awhile I just wanted a nice, quiet coffee shop to sit and read and think and enjoy some peace and quiet.

The Las Vegas strip is NOT a place of peace and quiet.

I did get to shoot some guns, though.  A friend and I cabbed it over to The Gun Store and fired off a bunch of ammo.  The highlight for me was firing a 44 Magnum.  That was awesome.

When we returned home I still did not feel well.  I felt worse, if fact.  At some point I had caught a cold and it has been a week of either sleepless nights spent coughing and sniffling, or being knocked unconscious by some prescription strength cough medicine and/or OTC Benadryl.  Most of my head seems to have been taken over by my nose and swollen and aching sinuses.  I just want it to end, so I can get back into the groove of my established writing pattern.

But that will not be happening any time soon, as my wife and I will be leaving on yet another trip on Wednesday, May 4th.  Since I write these weekly updates on Friday, when I finish my work week and began preparing for both the weekend and a new work week of writing, both which start on Saturday, I just might post an abbreviated Week in Writing 4 for Wednesday, May 4th.  But there will be precious little else on this blog until I return to my work station, jet lagged and exhausted, on Saturday, May 14th.

I will be taking some projects and notepads with me, so I can do some work while on our trip.  But after our weekend in Las Vegas, I refuse to kid myself about the amount of "real" writing that I will be able to achieve during our trip.

The Week in Writing 2

Yeah, like I ever would be able to get away with being that much of an asshole to either my wife or my son.  If I ever pulled something like that, I would get slapped on the face.  Hard.

This week's writing went smoothly, despite the anticipated "distractions" of our being away for the weekend and of my son being home for Easter Break.  (Which explains the clip for the week.*)  

Saturday: 470 (handwritten) words.  Sunday: 491 (handwritten) words.  Monday: 1,089 words.  Tuesday: 1,315.  On Wednesday I kicked it up a notch and wrote 2,002.  Thursday was the week's best in show with 2,053 words.  But my fatigue showed on Friday, as I only wrote was a "mere" 1,687 words.  

That's 17,125 words (around 85 double spaced pages) in 14 days, and the story is still growing.  I won't be using the "N" word, long or short form, until I finish the first draft and see just how much I actually have to work with.  The comforting thing is that I know where the characters are going and how the story ends.  It's figuring out what happens on the way there that is the real challenge.  

I also wrote some reviews for this blog, finished the last of the really heavy revisions needed to complete one particular short story, and began showing my "almost final" draft of another story to my friends and family, for feedback and error checks.

Now it's time to start Week #3.

*I know that I am going to run out of clips, eventually.  :(

The Week in Writing 1

Okay, it wasn't that bad.  But I am certain that there will be days when it will feel like it, if I just give this career change enough time.

Although Monday, April 11th marked my first real "work day" (i.e. the first day that I would have been at a paying job, rather than staying home and writing) I opted to start working on Saturday, April 9th.  I figured that the worst thing to do would be to psyche myself up for some kind of monumental let down, that the best thing to do would be to just start working.

So I did.

My week in writing went like this.  Saturday: 645 words written.  Sunday: 482 words.  Monday: 1,616.  Tuesday: 1,661.  Wednesday: 979.  Thursday: 1,899.  Friday: 1,217.

And that was just the "new" stuff.  I also worked on two short stories, inquired into some potential markets, began my research into the field of technical writing, and wrote some reviews on this blog.  Now, if I wanted to pad out my week in writing word count, I could have added the writing that I did for this blog.  But I consider this blog nothing more than a hobby that allows me to exercise my writing muscles.  So the 496 word review of Insidious and the 411 word review of Your Highness do not count toward my professional goal.  But I do reserve the right to change that rule for when I have days, or weeks, like the above clip.

But today starts a new week.  Time for me to do some real writing.  I will let you know how it is going (or how it went) next Saturday.

Until then, try to enjoy the daylight.  

And definitely enjoy the reviews and commentaries that are sure to post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday!  Thanks for reading.

Today is my first work day as a full time writer...

I already know that it (and every day after it) will go something like this:

I gave my two weeks notice on Monday...

Not only that, but I have no new job waiting for me on Monday, April 11th.  I have taken a huge and rather terrifying leap of self-faith.

Seventeen years working as an administrative assistant is seventeen years too many.  I am long overdue for a career change.  So I am embarking on the writing career that I had always wanted to have.

The decision to do this was actually made back in February, when my wife made me an offer that I could not refuse.  An offer that was identical to the one that Dean Koontz's wife made to him.

For those that do not know of this offer, it goes like this:  A long, long time ago, down in the southern part of the state of California (I think), Mrs. Dean R. Koontz noticed how miserable Mr. Dean R. Koontz was. So she made him an offer. She would support him for five years while he pursued a writing career. If he did not make something of himself as a writer by the end of those five years then he would have to pack up his dreams and get a real job.

Now, just go to your local bookstore (new or used) and take a look at the shelves lined with the works of Dean Koontz (he dropped the "R" somewhere around the late 1980s, I think) to see how that offer worked out.

I am not Dean Koontz, but I do have a wife that believes in me every bit as much as Mrs. Koontz believed in Mr. Koontz. Thus my ability to take a leap of faith and commence to doing more writing than just this blog (which has been both a terrific exercise machine for my writing muscles and a horrible distraction from doing more "real" writing) and attempt to truly make something of myself.

My only goal is to see if I can make at least as much money with my writing that I was making at my "paying the bills" job as an administrative assistant. Since I will also be plying my trade in the technical writing field, I think that is a feasible goal.

I’ve got until December 31, 2016 to reach it.