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Writing in Public: Day 04, Month 02

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“UnCivil Engineering” is coming along nicely.  Basically, it’s turning into a series of “Let’s Try This” Wily Coyote moments, where the main characters are doing different things to deal with the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse and fulfill their epic goal of cutting down on their commutes to work.  If anyone here has worked in or around New York City or Atlanta or any other major metropolitan area knows how annoying the travel time can be, with or without the zombies (And some would argue that their fellow commuters might as well be zombies).

That could be where this story originally came from.  I lived on Staten Island for a little over two years, first commuting into Manhattan and then commuting to Long Island.  In both cases the travel time was at least two hours one-way.  Traveling into Manhattan called for a train ride, a ferry ride, and a subway ride to get to my destination.  Traveling to Long Island required an automobile.  I’m not sure which was worse, but neither were fun.  With the Manhattan commute I could read a plethora of books, which I was happy to do.  My guilty pleasure during that time was the Gaunt’s Ghosts series of Warhammer 40K books by Dan Abnett.  Excellent series if you’re looking for straight-up action with characters that eventually grow on you.

On the other hand, the Manhattan commute led to a lot of pushing and shoving as people fought each other to get on and off the train/ferry/subway.  So, that could be annoying.

Anyway, on to today’s numbers.  Still not to the daily goal I want, but the day job kept me longer than planned:

  • Nonfiction: 305
  • Planning and outlining: 1,000
  • Short Fiction: 1,500
  • Novel Fiction: 000
  • Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 1,500

Total Salable for Month: 000

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 51,723

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 10,944

Writing in Public: Day 03, Month 02

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No, you are not reading the title wrong.  This is the first entry in the Writing in Public Challenge, Month 2.  I wasn’t feeling the best over the weekend, so I spent much of it resting up, brainstorming ideas without committing anything to paper, and getting some of my goals for the month organized.  Today was the official start to the month.

Starting this month I’m breaking up fiction writing into two subcategories: short story writing and novel writing, which will be combined into the total amount for the month and year.

With all that said, today was pretty awful for actual fiction written.  I outlined the revision for “Sublease,” but that was about it.  I also spent quite a bit of time reading articles on writing by Rachel Aaron (Of “The Legend of Eli Monpress” fame) and watching a great interview of sci-fi/fantasy author Cat Rambo that .  All of that is no excuse for the lack of words today.  The only thing I can blame – other than general laziness – is my lack of writing over the weekend.  It’s always a mistake when I go cold turkey for even a day or two.  If writing is an addiction it’s about the easiest one to break.  The day job can interfere with writing, but that’s still no excuse.  The time is there.  It just needs to be utilized.

Anyway, here are the lackluster numbers:

  • Nonfiction: 331 + 268
  • Planning and outlining: 794
  • Short Fiction: 000
  • Novel Fiction: 000
  • Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 000

Total Salable for Month: 000

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 50,223

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 10,944

Goals for the Week Ending 03-09-14

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Writing Goals (Any titles listed are working titles and – thankfully – subject to change):

  • Outline/Rewrite of “Sublease”, a science fiction tale set in the not-too-distant future where all of humanity is tied into a network that makes use of everyone’s unused physical and mental abilities in exchange for paying off the enormous debt a collapsed global economy has placed on everyone.  Think of it as a coal-mining town where the company owns everything, and charges more than you get paid for the necessities.  The hero is someone who wants to break free of that system.  I’m expecting this tale to be around 10,000 words.  This is the story I want to send to the Writers of the Future contest.  The revision for this one story should take the bulk of the week, I’m guessing.
  • Brainstorm/Outline/Rough Draft of “Metamorph,” a short story for Resurrection House‘s XIII Anthology (6,000 words or less).
  • Brainstorm/Outline/Rough Draft of “UnCivil Engineering,” a humorous short story featuring civil engineers in the aftermath of an apocalypse (6,000 words or less).  Aiming this as one of my submissions for the “Unidentified Funny Objects” anthology.
  • Brainstorm/Outline/Rough Draft two or three flash fiction pieces (1,000 words or less each).  I have some ideas jotted down in my brainstorming notebook by the bed.
  • Write outline for the second draft of “Into the Wastes”, a fantasy novel about a company of crusaders sent into their kingdom’s northern hinterlands to deal with one threat, only to discover multiple threats.

Reading Goals:

  • Read each of the five stories that Daily Science Fiction puts out this week.
  • Read Rhapsody, the first of the “Symphony of Ages” series by Elizabeth Haydon.
  • Re-read the prologues and opening chapters for several epic fantasy novels, including King’s Dragon (Kate Elliott), The Green Rider (Kristen Britain), and The Eye of the World (Robert Jordan), amongst others.  I’m doing this as an exercise to see if there is anything common in each book’s opening chapters and how that could benefit the opening chapters to “Into the Wastes.”

Submission Sunday – Week Ending 03/02/2014

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Here are this week’s totals.  A couple of new stories finished, but mostly resubmissions:

Summary: 2 New, 5 Resubmissions

“Harmonious Bedlam” submitted to Crossed Genres.

“Unit Zero” submitted to Penumbra.

Resubmissions:

“Sand” resubmitted to Fablecroft’s “Insert Title Here” Anthology.

“A Necessary Sacrifice” resubmitted to Betwixt.

“Paper Planet” resubmitted to Asimov’s Science Fiction.

“The Heart of the Wendigo” resubmitted to Straeon.

“Who Killed Zombie Robin?” resubmitted to Nightmare Magazine.

Writing in Public: Day 18, Month 01

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Today is the last day of February.  Not only is it a short month as far as the calendar goes, it’s also a very short month in terms of the Writing in Public challenge.  I had thought about waiting until March 1st to begin, but I wanted to get a boost in my writing through February and knew the pressure of having to come and write about my daily accomplishments publicly would do the trick.

“Harmonious Bedlam” is finished.  The final, submitted version is approximately 5,000 words.  That doubled the short(er) month’s total salable amount of fiction at just shy of 11,000 words.  I suppose it is not bad for the first month of the challenge, along with the total fiction amount of about 50,000 words.

My goal for the Month 02 of the challenge is to write at least 150,000 words of fiction, split evenly between “Into the Wastes” and various short stories.  Will it happen?  Well, I don’t know that I’ll be able to triple my output so quickly, but we shall see.  After all, last “month” only involved 18 days of writing, and 50,000 words were reached in that time.  I’m not sure how productive January was, but it may have been on par with February.  I feel like I only started writing in the last two-and-a-half weeks of that month, as well.  That’s one habit that needs to be broken this upcoming month.  When March arrives, the writing needs to happen!

On with the numbers:

  • Nonfiction: 172
  • Planning and outlining: 000
  • Fiction: 5,000
  • Salable words: 5,000

Total Fiction for Month: 50,223

Total Salable for Month: 10,944

 

Writing in Public: Day 17, Month 01

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Today was not a very productive day in terms of writing.  The day job (Henceforth referred to as “other work”) kept me a lot longer than usual.  Not much of an excuse, but when the time’s not there it’s not there.

As such, the focus today was solely on getting the revisions of “Harmonious Bedlam” started, and I made some decent progress.  Didn’t write everything I wanted, but there was quite a bit of research time involved with this tale.  It’s for the music theme at Crossed Genres, and my way of tying music in was to make it a fantasy setting where a group of magicians use music to emotionally compel and control the populace they rule.  Certain kinds of music have a profound emotional impact on me, and it is my hope that I’ll be able to convey that in prose rather than trying to get technical with the music being played.

On with the numbers:

  • Nonfiction: 172
  • Planning and outlining: 000
  • Fiction: 1500
  • Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 45,223

Total Salable for Month: 5,944

 

Writing in Public: Day 16, Month 01

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The rough draft of “Harmonious Bedlam” was finished after an additional 4,800 words.  It is much better structured than past rough drafts I’ve come up with, so I think the outlining strategy I followed from the people at How To Write A Novel Now.  Now, while that outlining strategy is designed primarily for novels, it was a big help to me for a longer short story of around 6,000 words or so.  I’m looking forward to putting it to “Sublease” and “You Are My Brothers” to see what elements I’m missing and where I can improve the story flow.

I have to say the last two months have been a journey for me.  A lot has been written, but even more has been learned.  I’ll go into that in a post at the end of the month, but I’m very satisfied with the way the time has gone.  There are definitely areas where I need to improve on multiple fronts (Technique, plotting, language, and theming for the writing itself, but also efficiency and stamina).  But, the forward momentum is there, and it is building.

Now, on to the day’s numbers!

  • Nonfiction: 197
  • Planning and outlining: 000
  • Fiction: 4,800
  • Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 43,723

Total Salable for Month: 5,944

Writing in Public: Day 15, Month 01

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I had an epiphany about “Into the Wastes” last night that I had to write down before I forget.  Five minutes later I was finished with the beginning of an idea that could help fully half of the story come together better.  I also had Listerine sitting in my mouth for that long.  I didn’t want to get up and spit it out until I was finished.

As with all late night ideas I’m looking at it with an eye of skepticism but also with excitement.  I really think the addition of one more character – or the injection of an already present character into an earlier part of the story – will make some of the chapters flow just a bit better and with a greater sense of urgency.  Anyway, the planning and outlining continues.  My plan is to begin the actual rewrite starting March 1st or 2nd, with a goal of finishing the second draft in 45 days.  The objective is for it to be a much tighter story that leaves room for a sequel but is also definitive in ending the current problem.

On short stories, I spent a good part of the day brainstorming and outlining “Harmonious Bedlam.”  The later afternoon and evening was devoted to writing the rough draft, and I finished about 2,400 words of it.  I’m trying a new experiment with this story in that I’m trying to get a more structured outline in place before the draft process begins.  Usually I just come up with a few basic elements to get a rough idea (Rough, get it?  Ahem, sorry) of what to write, and then I go to town.  This sometimes works, and sometimes results in an inefficient form of writing.  I want to up my daily word count, but I want the ratio of total fiction writing to final, salable writing to shift more in favor of the salable.  The writing is fun, but I’m aiming for a final product that I hope others will enjoy.

Nothing knew on revisions, but I managed to do at least a little bit in the other three daily goal areas: novel work, short story rough drafts, and short story planning and outlining.

  • Nonfiction: 377
  • Planning and outlining: 880
  • Fiction: 2,400
  • Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 39,823

Total Salable for Month: 5,944

Writing in Public: Day 14, Month 01

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It took a whole weekend to get rolling on it, but I finally finished with “Listening Post”.  It clocked in at roughly 3,333 words.  I’m going to let it sit until either tomorrow or Wednesday before re-reading it and making the final changes, but it won’t be much more or less than that.  I just need to check grammar, make sure I’m not being redundant in the story-telling, and see if there’s any way I can tighten up the plot and action.

The final draft of “Fallout Ariel” (Renamed to “Blue Pearls”) is finished.  It’s currently at 806 words, and hopefully will not fluctuate too much.

Lastly, the final draft of “Alien Concept” is finished.  Its final word count is 735.

  • Nonfiction: 397 +
  • Planning and outlining: 000
  • Fiction: 4,874
  • Salable words: 4,874

Total Fiction for Month: 37,423

Total Salable for Month: 5,944

Goals for the Week Ending 03-02-14

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You’ll note that a couple of these goals have been here for a couple of weeks now, and that’s because I keep finding reasons to not get around to them.  Specifically, reviewing and revamping the outline for the second draft of “Into the Wastes” as well as doing some reading research of some of my favorite fantasy books.

Another reading goal that has been added is to read a book each week.  I’ve fallen out of reading novels in favor of short stories over the last year or so, and it’s high time I get back to it.  As stated in an earlier post, reading is just as important a task for writers as writing is.  Reading is what gets most of us interested in writing in the first place, and by reading other authors we can see technique in action and learn from it.  It’s an enjoyable form of research, and it makes me feel a little guilty when I do it.  That’s probably why I keep finding excuses to not do it, but no more!

Writing Goals (Any titles listed are working titles):

  • Revise and submit “Listening Post” (3,500 salable words or less)
  • Revise and submit “Fallout Ariel” (1,000 salable words or less)
  • Revise and submit “Alien Concept” (1,000 salable words or less)
  • Write, revise, and submit “Songs of Fate” (4,000 salable words or less)
  • Write, revise, and submit “Signalmen” (4,000 salable words or less)
  • Revise and submit “Gentle Breeze” (3,500 salable words or less)
  • Finish rough draft of “You Are My Brothers” and get ready to outline it (6,000 more words of rough draft)
  • Outline “Sublease” and get ready for the rewrite.
  • Write outline for the second draft of “Into the Wastes”, a fantasy novel about a company of crusaders sent into their kingdom’s northern hinterlands to deal with one threat, only to discover multiple threats.

Reading Goals:

  • Read each of the five stories that Daily Science Fiction puts out this week.
  • Read Rhapsody, the first of the “Symphony of Ages” series by Elizabeth Haydon.
  • Re-read the prologues and opening chapters for several epic fantasy novels, including King’s Dragon (Kate Elliott), The Green Rider (Kristen Britain), and The Eye of the World (Robert Jordan), amongst others.  I’m doing this as an exercise to see if there is anything common in each book’s opening chapters and how that could benefit the opening chapters to “Into the Wastes.”

 

Words Goal:

Total Fiction: 35,000

Salable: 17,000