Today has been a day full of (mostly) uninterrupted writing and reading. Quite a bit was accomplished on multiple fronts:

• Short Story Writing: I’m halfway through the rough draft of “Evaporated Ocean.” It’s rough as rough can be, but I’m starting to see where the story will really shape up in the second draft. I’m looking forward to finishing and outlining the rough draft tomorrow, so I can get onto the second draft Thursday. In all, around 2,000 words were written, or 7 handwritten pages.
• Short Story Editing: I’m also halfway through the first round of edits of “The Lone Blue Strand” for Fictionvale. Man, looking back on something I wrote in March of 2014 is painful, and I know it was better than what I was writing even in December of 2013. My craft has improved, but it still has a long way to go! So, yeah. Editing older stories can cause much cringing, but it is always therapeutic in its own way.
• Novel Outlining: I’m now halfway through my scene-by-scene outline for the first Wendigo novel. Roughly 55,000 words, or 215 pages, is planned out. In a rough sense, anyway. There’s still much work to be done over the rest of the month, including finishing this summary outline. I hope to mostly finish with it tomorrow, and the rest on Thursday. Then the real work begins: bringing all of these scenes together in ways that further the three POV characters’ arcs, and the overall plot. Scenes that do not do at least one of those things (And preferably two or more) will be altered or cast out, and new scenes will take their place.
• Nonfiction Reading: I have finally gotten back to reading Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman. I want to get this finished in the next few days, then move on to my next nonfiction book: Word-Loss Diet by Rayne Hall
• Fiction Reading: Volume 30 of the Writers of the Future is finished! The book has many excellent short stories in it. Better yet, I’m finally starting to see what makes some short stories better than others, other than the nebulous, “Wow, I really liked that.” The more I study other people’s works – as well as my own – the more I start to see the framework of the story. Its beginning, middle, and end. It’s quite a bit of fun looking back at stories and trying to figure out exactly where all of that is.

Blog Posts: 413
Planning and outlining: 3,432
Short Fiction: 2,000
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