It may be a new month and there’s plenty of new business to tackle, but there was one lingering piece of old business that needed to be finished: my entry for Penumbra’s Hyperspeed-themed issue. I had finished the rough draft back on April 23rd, but due to lots of work coming up and general inefficiency on my part I didn’t get around to the revision until today.

In all, a revised draft and a final revision were completed on the 1st. The revised draft was almost a complete rewrite of the rough draft, and it totaled 4,451 words. That’s a lot, considering the word limit at Penumbra is 3,500. It took some time to cut the story (Titled “Extradimensional Periscope”) down into its final version, and it ended up not being submitted to Penumbra until very close to the midnight deadline (11:59:59 close). Cutting almost 1,000 words out of the story required rewriting a like amount of words, the total amount written today was around 5,500.

Here are the stats for “Extradimensonal Periscope”:

• Research:
  • Time: 30 minutes
• Brainstorming:
  • Time: 40 minutes
  • Words: 840
• Rough draft:
  • Time: 186 minutes
  • Words: 5,599
• Revising:
  • Time: 150
  • Words: 4,451
• Final version:
  • Time: 90
  • Words: 1,000
• Totals:
  • Time: 496 minutes (8.3 hours)
  • Words: 11,890
  • Final-to-Total word ratio (3,500 over 11,890): 29.44%

   

May 2nd brings with it new business. There are several deadlines I’m looking forward to meeting, and last month has taught me – once again – that I can’t take any days for granted. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can write today.

• Blog Posts: 267
• Planning and outlining: 000
• Short Fiction: 5,500
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 3,500

Total Fiction for Month: 5,500

Total Salable for Month: 3,500

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 134,977

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 36,034