Progress is coming on all but the reading front. Had bigger plans for today, but some emergency outdoor work coupled with recovering from an illness ruined my late afternoon and evening plans. But, all in all it was still a productive day:

• Write “Snowmelt” and come up with a real name for it. The rough draft is finished, and I compiled all of my notes from that. A new outline is ready, this one with a better sense of pacing and overall cohesion. The second draft (Or what I call the “real first draft”) writing happens tomorrow. My goal is to blaze through all 5,500 planned words in one crazed session. I’ve done it before, so I know it’s possible. If I can do that, my next phase of editing can begin on Friday and wrap up on Saturday with a final read-through Sunday before it’s off to somewhere.
• Edit my WOTF entry. Once again, time just didn’t pan out. I don’t want to get behind on my book outlining. Friday may just be one crazy edit session for both stories, “Snowmelt” and this one. We’ll see, because I definitely want to get this story edited before next week is finished. I printed off all 60 pages of the story and intend to go through it with a red pen. Haven’t done that in a long time, so I’m looking forward to it.
• Continue outlining the Wendigo Novel 1. Currently still working on the scene summary outline. This “summary” is supposed to only be about 4 pages, but I’ve come up with closer to 6, and I’m only 25% through with the story. Going to be interesting to see where this goes. I’m still on target with time, though. I’m hoping to just power through this tomorrow afternoon and get the rest of it finished, no matter how long it ends up being. Then I’ll spend Friday paring it down into a shorter summary. It’s a skill I need to learn if I want to be able to write effective synopses for prospective agents/publishers, or effective blurbs for self-publishing.
• Read Volume 30 of the Writers of the Future. Finished Volume 28 earlier today, finally. I have a bad habit of putting down the books I want to read in favor of doing more writing/outlining. I guess it’s good that I want to keep working, but it’s bad that
• Read Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman. Still haven’t gotten much past the first chapter for the aforementioned reasons. Will have to spend some time playing catchup, and that’s always bad to try.

Remember: when writing a rough draft, expect it to suck. That way you can plow through and complete it. Writing it down the first time is the fun part. The real work begins with the rewriting and editing. But, before that can happen it has to be finished! Don’t try to make it perfect the first time, or it’ll never happen.

Here are today’s numbers:

Blog Posts: 1,750
Planning and outlining: 2,300
Short Fiction: 1,000
Novel Fiction: 0
Salable words: 0

Total Fiction for Month: 3,250

Total Salable for Month: 1,000

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 3,250

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 1,000