Hi Folks,
Today is the first day of me going back to writing earlier instead of allowing my quiet time to be taken up with other nonsense.
I’m allowing myself a half-hour to an hour and a half administrative time. During that time I’ll check and respond to emails, update my Fiction spreadsheet and tend to other administrative matters.
I’ll also take care of the kitten and come here to begin the Journal entry for the day.
Today I’m going to try something I haven’t tried in awhile. I’m anxious to get back into writing something longer than a short story. So in a few minutes I’m going to open my file on Norval Babineaux. (The Advent of Simon Stark novel sprang from it earlier.) I like the characters and the setting, so I’m going to go back to it. I’ll read through it first, then put my fingers on the keyboard and just write whatever comes.
Below you’ll see a “brought forward” number of words (not new words) and then new words written after that each day. If it works out the way I expect it will, it will turn into a novel or novella.
The Day
Rolled out a little before 2. Email, coffee, the kitten and here to write the above. This morning my admin time took a little over two hours. It included updating my Fiction spreadsheet with new buy links (D2D sends me an email when a title is available at a new vendor) and selecting a few professional pics to share with a friend for a cover she’s trying to put on her latest title.
Okay, almost 4 a.m. so now to Norval Babineaux.
I started reading through Babineaux, allowing myself to touch it here and there as I moved through it. All of this was in creative voice, just reading and adding what sprang to mind natuarally. I wasn’t looking for how many times I used the word “that” or any of that nonsense.
About halfway through the reading I took a mandated break to conduct a catch and release on a mouse that my little girl cornered in the living room. Didn’t have to move furniture, etc. and this one took all of five minutes from spotting him to dropping him over the back fence. It’s that time of year, but I really wish they’d find somewhere else to go.
Read through some more, added maybe another hundred words and took a break to fill an order for The Wes Crowley Saga direct from StoneThread Publishing. Cool. He got a better price than he would have anywhere else, and the author (I) got a bigger slice of the pie. Win win.
In case you’re wondering, here are the figures:
The author gets 85% of the retail price for direct sales at ST Publishing.
The author gets 82% of the retail price for sales at Smashwords.
The author gets 68% of the retail price for sales at B&N, Kobo, Apple etc. BUT
The author gets only 35% of the retail price for sales at Amazon. (Go figure.)
Took a break from 8:30 to about 9 a.m. to do some other little stuff, and I’m going back to the story now. Gonna hit it until about noon. That’ll get me through what I wrote originally and maybe plus a little. Then I’m gonna watch football, probably for the rest of the day. I might get back to ol’ Norval today, but probably not.
Today’s Writing
Okay, I did a few reading sessions, each time adding maybe 10 to maybe 20 words.
Then three decent new sessions for the totals you see below. Not bad for a (voluntarily) abbreviated day.
Fiction Words: 3059
Nonfiction Words: 650
Writing of Norval Babineaux
(Words brought forward 5231)
Day 1…… 3059 words. Total words to date…… 8290 words
Total fiction words for the month……… 33053
Total fiction words for the year………… 637044
Total nonfiction words for the month… 9841
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 51943 (since September 1)