The blog has been pretty quiet over the last few days and the main reason has been that my Dad has been in town visiting with us and the kids, and I’ve been away from the computer. In fact, the only time I’ve really sat in front of the computer this weekend is to get in my writing, and yesterday, I did that while sitting out in the back yard. The weather has been grand here.
I wanted to check in and provide a few updates. A normal blogging schedule should resume later today or tomorrow, but in the meantime, here are some things that might be of general interest.
1. Tomorrow’s Going Paperless post should be a good one. It is one of the once-a-month automation posts. I’ve been testing out a new automation that should be of great help to freelancers of all stripes, but it also demonstrates some cool Evernote integration capabilities. Stay tuned for that.
2. Progress on the second draft of the novel is beginning to pick up. I love second drafts because I’ve figure out the story in the first draft and I get to tell readers the story in the second. In short stories, I generally don’t have trouble, but in a novel I find it difficult in trying to keep the pace going and keep the story interesting. But I think I’ve found a way to work through that by doing a kind of micro-draft for each “chapter.” I’ll write the chapter based on what I know of the story, then see how it could be improved, and I’ll do a rewrite of it to build in those improvements before moving on to the next “chapter.” I put “chapter” in quotes because I’m not formally constructing chapters yet, but instead collections of scenes. Anyway, this seems to work, although I suspect I’m writing about 1.5 times more than what will actually show up in the final draft.
3. And speaking of writing, last week was a good one. I wrote 7,790 words for the week, averaging a little over 1,000 words/day! The last time I wrote more words in a single week was back on the week of December 28, when I was on vacation! This is almost entirely due to the fact that I am finally hitting my stride on the second draft of the novel. It felt good to get those words down. In fact, if you count the last 7 days (not last week, but a rolling 7 days), I’ve written 8,300 words, and as of last night, my 7-day moving average is 1,185 words/day1. That pleases me.
4. I have now received my third original anthology invitation. The first was for Beyond the Sun, which came out last summer. I’ve been invited to two more anthologies since then, and both of them sound like fun ones. Being invited doesn’t guarantee acceptance, of course, and I still have to write the stories. One of the stories is due later this summer, and I have a pretty good idea for that one. The other isn’t due until early next year, and I think I have the root of an idea for that one. But I think it is pretty cool just to get the invites. As a writer, it is certainly a confidence builder.
That’s about it for now. As I said, things should get back to normal on the blog today or tomorrow, and I apologize for the lack of content the last few days. But I was off having a good weekend.
How was your weekend?
- For those wondering, my best week ever was the week of August 10, 2013, when I wrote a total of 12,966 words. ↩
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