Hi Folks,
Well, first day of the month. I was hoping for a really good day to start the month. It was good enough I guess, but various minor problems and one “incident” sucked up a lot of my time today. Well, and a little other writing.
The novel is still going great, very smoothly moving from scene to scene. That makes it even more annoying when I can’t give it the time I want to give it. Tomorrow will be better in that regard, good lord, cats and children willing. I intend to spend at least 5 hours in the novel tomorrow.
The Day
Pretty good night’s rest last night and I rolled out right at 3 this morning.
For some reason I thought it was 2 until I staggered into the kitchen, barked my shin on an errant cabinet door, cursed (quietly, people are trying to sleep) and caught the clock with my little flashlight. Three, right on the money. Score!
I can’t complain too much about lost hours today, really. A huge chunk of that was Just Me.
Yesterday, while fact checking names and dates and who was dead or still alive at a certain time in an earlier Crowley book, I ran across a scene that struck me as a really good stand-alone story. Those of you who are signed up for the free story of the week will see it on Monday, February 1. If you Just Can’t Wait it’s available through all the standard bookslingers rat nayow (as they say in Texas).
So after an abbreviated wake-up period (halfway through my first mugga), I devoted about an hour this morning to adding almost 600 words to that story to flesh it out and give it legs. Then another couple hours for the cover (that’s it on the left) and publishing it to D2D, Smashwords, and Amazon.
Oh, the title is Saving Egregio. So there’s three hours right there, gone from the novel.
Then I hit another walk, but only about two miles. I’m gonna have to stay out of washes for awhile. I need to walk roads until I get my wind built up again. There are places an arroyo will run downhill for a mile and the slope is so gentle you don’t even realize it. Until you turn around to head back. You notice it then.
And then I devoted about three hours to back and forth emails with one of my children about a problem she’s having. Didn’t settle anything, but that wasn’t the purpose. You dads out there know what I mean. She didn’t want the problem shot or sloughed off a pirogue into a wetland fulla dem swamp donkey or dumped in a gasseous mine way out in the desert. So no “solving” was called for. It was just one of those deals where a good dad will do that “be there” thing.
Now I’m still strivin’ for that good-dad title, so you see my predicament. And the thing is, when I’m hangin’ with Wes an’ the boys, I can’t “be” anywhere recognizable to modern America. So I set things aside for awhile. Fortunately, I was hangin’ with Paco Messina and Frank Freeman and a few other Comanchero types. They thought it was hilarious that I had to bow out of the book for awhile. I think they think I keep an eye on ’em for Crowley.
This was another morning when I couldn’t let the babies out early. It was 24 degrees and they were plenty miffed about it, let me tell you. Neither one of them curled up for a nap for a good ten, fifteen minutes. I seriously considered ordering in some liquid nitrogen. I would dunk about the last half-inch of a tail in there, see, and then I’d flick it with my finger, snapping it off. Then I’d say “Now, see what can happen? See? That’s why I’m not letting you outside.”
Oh, note to self. Write something featuring liquid nitrogen and dunked parts. Do NOT make it chick lit, ’cause ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
Finally, my almost regular note on Dean Wesley Smith. You guys need to check it out beginning tomorrow. Seriously. He’s going to write a book on Heinlein’s Rules, and he’s going to post it chapter by chapter on his blog starting in the next day or two. There are only five rules, but he will go into a TON of other stuff if I know Dean. And some of it will set off that little bell in your head. This one is not to be missed.
Today’s Writing
Well, I seem to have explained everything pretty well above, so I’ll just move into the numbers.
Oh, I noticed I hadn’t updated the totals on the right for the past few days so I went back and did that.
Fiction Words: 2064
Writing of The Scent of Acacia (Book 9 in the Wes Crowley saga)
Day 1…… 3887 words. Total words to date…… 3887 words
Day 2…… 3092 words. Total words to date…… 6979 words
Day 3…… 3365 words. Total words to date…… 10344 words
Day 4…… 3077 words. Total words to date…… 13421 words
Day 5…… 4486 words. Total words to date…… 17907 words
Day 6…… 3739 words. Total words to date…… 21646 words
Day 7…… 1471 words. Total words to date…… 23117 words
Writing of “Saving Egregio” (Wes Crowley short story)
Day 1…… 0593 words. Total words to date…… 3397 words (Done—I’m counting only the 593 new words in the totals)
Total fiction words for the month……… 2064
Total fiction words for the year………… 606055
Now that’s an interesting post. Barked shin, cursing, modifying Egregio, family fire-fighting, and a liquid nitrogen fantasy about kittens and a shattered banana. Don’t rotate your computer a single degree. Your feng shui is obviously harmonized. And thanks for the story.
Feng my whut, now?