Today was another day where not everything went according to plan, but a good bit of work still managed to get done. Let’s see what happened:

• Short Story Writing: I decided not to finish the rough draft of “Evaporated Oceans” and instead focused on a revised outline based on what I already knew of the story. It shaped up quite nicely, with the appropriate (I hope) amount of rises and falls in the action, and a satisfying climax. The story is really about two friends reconciling with one another, but it’s set on the backdrop of a post-apocalyptic world and a dangerous situation. Tomorrow morning I will dive into the second draft and get all of it written before lunch. That’s my goal, and I’m sticking to it! I’m estimating it will be around 15 pages or so.
• Short Story Editing: I’m down to the last couple of scenes in “The Lone Blue Strand” before I go back and finish up any other areas I thought were soft. It’s amazing how you can write and rewrite something, and it’s not until much, much later that you realize what you wrote doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. At least, not in parts. That was the bulk of today’s edits. Not the edits given, but things I noticed and wanted to change. Cutting a paragraph here, adding a couple there. It’s shaping up nicely, though!
• Novel Outlining: Today began what Karen Wiesner calls the story evolution process in her book “First Draft in 30 Days.” During the next two or three days I’ll be going over the scene outline and my other notes to determine – and then tweak – the overall flow of the story, from the first mentioning of conflict and the story’s goal to the climax and resolution of the tale. All in all, it’s around 29 different points spread across Beginning, Middle, and End. I didn’t have as much afternoon time as I would have liked today, so I could only tackle the first 3 points in the Beginning. That is, a description of the initial conflict that starts off the story, a description of the true story goal (Not minor subplot goals and the short-term goals), and a description of the main protagonists who will attempt to achieve the story goal. This is likely an area that will be revised and edited as I go through the points in the Middle and End, so I’m curious to see how everything will turn out in the end. This is an area where I absolutely do not want to rush or screw things up. The last thing I want to do is get to the end of the rough draft and realize I’ll need to rewrite at least half of it from scratch because it needs to go in a completely different direction.
• Nonfiction Reading: I read a little bit more of Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman, and likely won’t get to read any more until Saturday.
• Fiction Reading: Now six chapters into my rereading of Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. Enjoying every page of it so far!

Blog Posts: 485
Planning and outlining: 1,391
Short Fiction: 0
Novel Fiction: 0
Salable words: 0

Total Fiction for Month: 10,550

Total Salable for Month: 1,000

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 10,550

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 1,000