The second revision (Or third rewrite, however you want to call it) of “The Rabbits of Forest Warren” is complete! The rough draft was around 2,050 words, the first revision about 4,146 words, and this most recent rewrite came in at around 5,314 words. I am going to do my best to shave this down to about 4,500 words before I send it off to Spark, but I’m thinking it’ll end up around 5,000 words total. There are some areas that can definitely be trimmed of detail and dialogue, but there are a couple of other areas that need a bit more exposition. So, we’ll see how the sets of deletions and insertions average out in the end.

Regardless, it’s been a fun thing to write. Fables aren’t what I normally dabble in, and I have no idea how well this will fit the bill. The requirements were it needed to feature animal characters and have a strong moral message, and it has both.

• Nonfiction: 187
• Planning and outlining: 000
• Short Fiction: 4,478
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 61,617

Total Salable for Month: 13,940

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 111,840

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 24,884

The second revision of “The Rabbits of Forest Warren” has begun. It’s probably more accurate to refer to it as a third rewrite rather than a second revision, as I am not drawing from the rough draft or first revised draft all that much, other than for structure. I’m also not sure how long the story will end up being. I want it to have a bit of a Redwall feel to it, and Redwall was known for its detailed dialogue, descriptions ,and feast scenes. I will likely only have two of those three elements in it, but it will still add up into a lengthy tale.

The Spark Anthology has a word limit of about 12,000 words, so I’m not worried too much on word count. If anything, the story will be as long as it needs to be and I’ll trim only where necessary.

• Nonfiction: 173
• Planning and outlining: 000
• Short Fiction: 836
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 57,139

Total Salable for Month: 13,940

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 107,362

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 24,884

Day 22 of the challenge ended with hardly anything written at all, to the point that I skipped a post altogether. To make a long story short, computer problems arose on the PC I use for telecommuting. There was a piece of software my boss asked me to install, and upon installing it the computer crashed with numerous corrupted Windows files. Spent pretty much all day yesterday trying to rectify it, only to find out that Windows will need a complete reinstall. Getting a new hard drive while I’m at it, so the PC will be down for a couple of days. As you can imagine, that messed up any chance for writing or any other chores.

On the plus side I did get a chance to start reading through a little of my Writers of the Future anthologies that I’ve collected. Want to go through those in order to get a better handle on writing tales longer than a short story but shorter than a novel.

Today the problems extended from the computer to my wife’s car. Didn’t want to start when we first ventured out, so tomorrow’s commute will be interesting. I’ll also be making a stop at the dealership at some point to see if we can get this problem fixed. A good bit of the afternoon was devoted to diagnosing the problem, but I was only able to narrow it down to about five or six things. That kept some of the work for today down, but it wasn’t a total loss like yesterday was.

We stopped by the local bookstore to pickup my ordered copies of David Farland’s Million Dollar Outlines and Drawing on the Power of Resonance in Writing. I’ve skimmed through both and like what I’ve seen so far. Looking forward to delving deep into them during the first few days of April, before I get onto the “Into the Wastes” rewrite. I’d like to start reading them sooner, but during this last week of March I want to focus on all of the deadlines I’m trying to meet. Friday’s lethargy and Saturday’s anarchy made a mess of my schedule, so it’ll be tight from here through the 31st!

I finished the revised draft of “The Rabbits of Forest Warren.” The rough draft was around 2,050 words, but this revision clocked in at 4,146 words. I guess the use of a keyboard loosened my thoughts up and let the words flow a bit more. It still needs a lot of polish, but I came up with a couple of improvements on the original idea that will help set up the final battle a bit better as well as bring the moral of the fable into light without being preachy or overly direct. When something I write has an overall moral to it I prefer it be revealed through a combination of actions and organic dialogue between characters, not a situation where the narrator or one of the characters breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the reader. The end result of the story should be around 3,000 words, I think. There’s a lot of fluff and repetition that I can cut out of the story, but I’ll also be adding more descriptive language in parts, so we’ll see what the end result is.

Tomorrow I’m going to spend a bit of time reading through the Redwall series, just to get a better feel of writing about bipedal animals. It’s a great series in its own right, but tomorrow I won’t be reading for pleasure. Not entirely, anyway. In addition to this, my goal is to finish the second revision of “The Rabbits of Forest Warren.” I’m running out of time before the end of the month, and there are still three more stories I want to get finished before then.

• Nonfiction: 658
• Planning and outlining: 000
• Short Fiction: 3,301
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 56,303

Total Salable for Month: 13,940

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 106,526

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 24,884

Today was a day of wasted potential. There was time to write once the day job was finished, but I think a week of early starts and late finishes took its toll, because by the afternoon I was out of it. Didn’t perk up much until the late hours of the evening, and that was when – in a half-asleep trance – I managed to put out a few pages of the “Rabbits of Forest Warren” rewrite. I was surprised it was legible, but it will need quite a bit of work.

• Nonfiction: 000
• Planning and outlining: 150
• Short Fiction: 845
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 53,002

Total Salable for Month: 13,940

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 103,225

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 24,884

“A New Face on an Old Place” is done! Put roughly 500 more words into it today, coming up with a final word count of around 3,300. I’m going to let it sit for a few days, get a couple of people to read it, then read it again myself. After that, it’s getting fired off to Unidentified Funny Objects as my second submission there. Here’s hoping it works out! All in all, it took about 9 hours to write. It felt like a lot longer than that, though. I was really struggling with parts of it.

I began work on a fable today, not something I typically write. Spark’s anthology contest this year has to do with fables, and it seems like a worthwhile challenge. The working title is “The Rabbits of Forest Warren.” That may not be the final title, but it’s a start. The planning phase is finished and the rough draft is done at about 2,050 words. It’s really rough, but it’s done. The structure is sound enough, and so is the moral of not relying solely on another for your own defense. It just needs a lot of prettying up. I may dig into my Redwall books tomorrow for some ideas on the language side of things.

Also, I’ve decided to rewrite “A Necessary Sacrifice” for the Writers of the Future contest deadline this month. I had originally written it for the anthology of Unlikely Entomology last year, and it was rejected. Now that I’ve read several articles on story and plot structures I can see the faults in the original tale, although I did like the premise of it. I think with some reworking it’ll be good enough for the big time. The story will also need to be lengthened just a bit. The original tale came in at 7,200 words which is on the low end for what the Writers of the Future typically accepts. I think it’ll need to be more in the 9,000 – 12,000 range. With the way I plan to rewrite it, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Though today wasn’t very productive from a word count perspective, we did manage to write enough to exceed last month’s total word count and total salable word count. With 11 days left until March is over, that’s promising!

• Nonfiction: 397
• Planning and outlining: 785
• Short Fiction: 2,550
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 3,300

Total Fiction for Month: 52,157

Total Salable for Month: 13,940

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 102,380

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 24,884

I’m mostly finished with “A New Face on an Old Place.” As I was working on the story tonight I came to the realization that I was making it too long without building on the conflict. One scene could effectively explain all of the later steps that would occur in the plot, so I was spending a lot of time spinning the proverbial wheels. The writing wasn’t bad, but the added weight wasn’t adding anything else to the story other than weight. So, out it had to go. What’s left will be a much shorter tale, probably in the area of 3,000 words.

I just need to finish up with the final scene (Which my wife suggested), add in a little bit of discussion about what these “later steps” would have been, and that should do it. Provided the day job doesn’t keep me pinned down more than usual tomorrow I hope to have this done in the morning hours, and then I can get started on a new tale tomorrow afternoon.

I only completed about half of my word count goal for the day, but it’s still better than I’ve been doing, so I’m content. Tomorrow will be a better day!

• Nonfiction: 225
• Planning and outlining: 000
• Short Fiction: 3,000
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 49,607

Total Salable for Month: 10,640

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 99,830

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 21,584

“The Lone Blue Strand” is finished, and ready to get sent out the door. I’m going to have a couple of people read over it to see if there are any glaring errors I missed, and then it’s off to Penumbra before the end of the their deadline. Took a bit longer than I thought it would to finish. From the brainstorming phase to the final touches it was around 13 hours, with a total of 18,671 words written, rewritten, coaxed, teased, tortured, and condensed down into a final count of 3,368. That might change a little bit as I get feedback, but the final tally should be between 3,300 and 3,400.

Steampunk is not what I typically write, but it is a lot of fun. Hoping to do more!

Unfortunately the day job had me busy for longer than I wanted (Isn’t it like that for everyone?) so no more progress was made on two other pieces I want to get wrapped up soon. I’ll be devoting as much of tomorrow as possible to those tales, and we’ll see where we go from there!

• Nonfiction: 204
• Planning and outlining: 000
• Short Fiction: 4,000
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 3,350

Total Fiction for Month: 46,607

Total Salable for Month: 10,640

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 96,830

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 21,584

Today’s writing objectives were reached, albeit a little late. We went to bed late the night before, so I was unable to wake up more than an hour before Church. That restricted my morning to just resubmitting stories. The post-midnight hour right before bed was productive, though. Managed a partial re-outlining of “A New Face on an Old Place” that adds a scene at the beginning to bring the overall conflict into focus within the first few lines, as well as the challenge our dastardly protagonist faces.

Upon my return from church and following lunch I sat down and got to it. The first revised draft of “The Lone Blue Strand” is finished. It’s big and ugly, but it’s done. Between it and the rough draft I have a pretty good idea of where the second revision and subsequent final drafts will end up. Despite its chunkiness of 4,608 words I’m confident I’ll be able to get it under 3,500 words. There is some back-and-forth I was able to eliminate between the rough draft and the first revision, and I see where even more of that can be condensed in the follow-up writing.

The last thing I tackled before heading to bed was the second rewrite of the opening two scenes of “A New Face on an Old Place.” While it’s still not quite where I want it to be in terms of pacing and general humorousness, I’m going to start the day off tomorrow – once the day job is done – with finishing up this story.

All in all, not a bad finish to the previous week. The trick will be maintaining the pace. It’s doable. And if I want to meet my writing goals for the month, it’s necessary.

• Nonfiction: 316
• Planning and outlining: 314
• Short Fiction: 6,004
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 36,747

Total Salable for Month: 7,290

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 86,970

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 18,234