Today was a productive day from multiple standpoints, but most importantly from writing. I wrote enough of each scene of “You Are My Brothers” to be able to start the rewrite tomorrow morning. This is good, as the deadline for Sword & Sorceress is Friday, and I will do my best to make it happen.

I imagine the final word count for the story will be in the 7,000 to 8,000 range. This rough draft was lacking in detail. It was more to get the basic layout and pacing of the story down, and I think I’ve managed to do that.

Nothing new on the other tasks of the week, although I did finish reading David Farland’s Drawing on the Power of Resonance in Writing. It was a very fascinating read, and I plan to go back through it again in order to take notes. He goes into quite a bit of detail on just what resonance is, how it affects our choices as readers, and how it should affect our choices as writers. I plan to do a more detailed post on it in the future, but for now know it is well worth the investment. It’s a short book, but chock full of great concepts and ideas.

• Blog Posts: 236
• Planning and outlining: 000
• Short Fiction: 4,158
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 9,658

Total Salable for Month: 3,500

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 139,135

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 36,034

It’s amazing how flashes of insight come when you least expect them. Just a little while ago I was working on my character list for “You Are My Brothers” and realized that the story structure I had spent the afternoon working on was lacking in try/fail cycles and conflict. Some of it was there, but not enough for the length of the story I was aiming for. And then a conversation with my wife on which of two ending ideas I had (A or B) led to a third idea that was much better and more complete than either of the others (C).

With that, I should be ready to start my rough draft of the story tomorrow morning. I should say rewriting as I wrote a good bit of the rough draft back in February, but it was very, very rough and doesn’t match the story structure I now have in mind.

My goal tomorrow is to get at least half of the story written before the day is out, if not more. I’m pushing off some other tasks for the day until this is done. All of it needs to be finished, but this comes first.

• Blog Posts: 227
• Planning and outlining: 1,400
• Short Fiction: 000
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 5,500

Total Salable for Month: 3,500

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 134,977

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 36,034

Yet another day of brainstorming and research without much actual writing being done. Doesn’t help that the weather’s been sporadic and the times I’ve wanted to spend indoors has been spent outdoors working in the garden.

Anyway, I’m thinking the next couple of flash pieces I write will be written as news articles. I’ve got a couple of ideas that, if executed properly, will be short and funny. One will be dealing with vampires and the NSA, while the other will deal with the tendency for heroes in old tales (Or in the back story of newer tales) to seal away monsters rather than kill them outright when they’ve defeated them.

Tomorrow’s another day that will be hit-or-miss weather-wise. If the weather’s bad, I’ll be writing all day. If the weather’s good, I’ll be working on gardening before the weather gets bad.

• Blog Posts: 167
• Planning and outlining: 350
• Short Fiction: 000
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 5,500

Total Salable for Month: 3,500

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 134,977

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 36,034

Already a week into May, and this is my second post. April business seems to have spilled over into May, but things are calming down a bit.

Over the past several days no new writing has been accomplished, but quite a bit of brainstorming has been going on. Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress open for submissions until the middle of the month, so I’ve been focused on getting the story “You are My Brothers” ready for the big time. It’s a fantasy version of the Siege of Bastogne, with a group of all-female knights playing the part of Patton and riding in to the rescue only to discover that a worse threat faces them if they do not act on it in the next few days. I imagine the final product will be around 7,000 – 8,000 words.

Another story I’m hammering out the finer points on is “For All Mankind.” This will be a retelling of the Apollo missions from a militaristic, alien-invasion standpoint while attempting to remain true to the technology of the time. Some artistic license will be taken, but I want to try and keep a realistic tone to the whole piece. Likewise, this story will be on the longer side, at around 8,000 – 12,000 words.

Lastly, a friend of mine and I were brainstorming on how we could turn one of those “You’ve won an all expense paid vacation to Mexico!” robocalls into a story in and of itself, so I expect there will be some developments on that in the next day or two.

• Blog Posts: 285
• Planning and outlining: 1,200
• Short Fiction: 000
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 5,500

Total Salable for Month: 3,500

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 134,977

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 36,034

It may be a new month and there’s plenty of new business to tackle, but there was one lingering piece of old business that needed to be finished: my entry for Penumbra’s Hyperspeed-themed issue. I had finished the rough draft back on April 23rd, but due to lots of work coming up and general inefficiency on my part I didn’t get around to the revision until today.

In all, a revised draft and a final revision were completed on the 1st. The revised draft was almost a complete rewrite of the rough draft, and it totaled 4,451 words. That’s a lot, considering the word limit at Penumbra is 3,500. It took some time to cut the story (Titled “Extradimensional Periscope”) down into its final version, and it ended up not being submitted to Penumbra until very close to the midnight deadline (11:59:59 close). Cutting almost 1,000 words out of the story required rewriting a like amount of words, the total amount written today was around 5,500.

Here are the stats for “Extradimensonal Periscope”:

• Research:
  • Time: 30 minutes
• Brainstorming:
  • Time: 40 minutes
  • Words: 840
• Rough draft:
  • Time: 186 minutes
  • Words: 5,599
• Revising:
  • Time: 150
  • Words: 4,451
• Final version:
  • Time: 90
  • Words: 1,000
• Totals:
  • Time: 496 minutes (8.3 hours)
  • Words: 11,890
  • Final-to-Total word ratio (3,500 over 11,890): 29.44%

   

May 2nd brings with it new business. There are several deadlines I’m looking forward to meeting, and last month has taught me – once again – that I can’t take any days for granted. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can write today.

• Blog Posts: 267
• Planning and outlining: 000
• Short Fiction: 5,500
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 3,500

Total Fiction for Month: 5,500

Total Salable for Month: 3,500

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 134,977

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 36,034

The Spindles Fairy Tale is finished! In all I wrote 4,303 words today, but the final word count of the story came out to be 3,825 words. Its title is now “Final Liberation.” This is a play on a few things, the first being that this takes place around the fifth anniversary of the liberation of Hong Kong at the end of World War II. It also is in reference to the liberation of the damsel in distress in the original story, and a liberation of the mind on the part of the main characters, all of whom are wounded veterans who get one last hurrah together as they go to save said damsel.

The Spindles anthology wants to have a focus on minorities and disabled individuals, and this tale managed to do both. The main characters are a diverse cast of individuals, many of whom received crippling injuries in the fight against Japanese occupation forces. The multiracial aspect of the cast reflects the multicultural effort that was involved in the defense of Hong Kong and its occupation resistance efforts. The cobbling together of remnants of Canadian, British, Indian, and Chinese units into teams of guerrilla forces led to the establishment of units that had no racial divide, a first in the British military but one that stuck following the war. At least in Hong Kong, from what I’ve read.

If nothing else this tale provided me with an excuse to read about a battle I had never heard of before. Some of the stories I encountered. There was brave Captain Mateen Ansari of 7th Rajput Regiment, who was tortured to the point of losing his legs for failing to renounce allegiance to the Queen, and who was later executed for his efforts to help fellow prisoners escape. And then there was Brigadier John K. Lawson of the Canadians who, after his headquarters was overrun by the enemy, gave his last orders over radio before facing the enemy with a pistol in either hand. His last stand was so heroic that the Japanese buried him with full military honors, a rare event. And the countless others who fought, bled, and died together in December of 1941 or in the following years while imprisoned.

Thank you all for your service.

With that said, April comes to a close with only one story completely finished. This was a disastrous month for writing. Much of it was beyond my control, but I’ll take the blame for a portion of it. Even on the worst of days there is always time to write. I just need to be better about finding that time and capitalizing on it, especially as we go deeper into Spring and outdoor gardening activities begin to take up more and more time.

• Blog Posts: 488
• Planning and outlining: 000
• Short Fiction: 4,303
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 3,825

Total Fiction for Month: 13,628

Total Salable for Month: 3,825

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 129,477

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 32,534

The rough draft of the Spindles Fairy Tale story is finished. Around 2,976 words were written today, all focused on this particular tale. I’ve decided to go with a more modern take on the Chinese Fairy Tale “Help in Need.” I had to rework the protagonist a few times. Originally it was going to be a real member of the Hong Kong Defence Force, but I settled on a fictional individual who worked closely with the real member. It made plotting a little easier, and kept me from accidentally getting the real member’s personality and ambitions wrong.

The deadline is tomorrow, so I will need to work quickly on revisions. I already know where I want to go with it, but I expect it to take most of the day to complete.

• Blog Posts: 160
• Planning and outlining: 000
• Short Fiction: 2,976
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 9,325

Total Salable for Month: 000

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 125,174

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 24,884

The last couple of days were unproductive to the point of writing so little it didn’t even bear making a post about.

Today’s been a bit better. This morning I finished with the rough draft of the Penumbra “Hyperspeed” story. Total length of the rough draft is 4,549 words, with 3,840 of that written today in the space of a little over two hours. Proof that I can be productive when I set aside some time to just sit and do nothing but that. Now, like any rough draft of mine it’s ugly and shouldn’t see the light of day. But, the story structure is there as are most of the basic character and plot elements. All that’s left is to rewrite it to greatness. Easier said than done, but revising and rewriting is not the insurmountable task it was even a few months ago.

Spring cleaning outside took up the rest of the afternoon and evening, so unfortunately nothing more was done on the Spindles Fairy Tale entry. Hopefully I’ll get back to that on Monday.

• Blog Posts: 172
• Planning and outlining: 000
• Short Fiction: 3,840
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 6,349

Total Salable for Month: 000

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 122,198

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 24,884

Today was yardwork day. Spent a good bit of time mowing so that we could get the riding mower to the shop for its once-every-couple-of-years maintenance. There are some things I can do with it, but some of it needs a professional.

Anyway, I was able to slip some writing into the day, and the time spent on the mower was productive from a brainstorming point of view. I decided what was wrong with the openings to both short stories from yesterday, and I’ve figured out how to improve on them both and get the stories kicked off a little bit faster.

Today I spent a bit of time working on the rewriting of the “Hyperspeed” rough draft (Would that be a revised draft, or just a second rough draft?) and am about 859 words into it. Didn’t get a chance to do much on the “Fairy Tale” rough draft, but I’ve got a good idea of where I want to go with it.

Anyway, tomorrow afternoon and evening should be free for plenty of writing, so here’s hoping we can push our word count back up to what we were doing last month.

• Blog Posts: 194
• Planning and outlining: 000
• Short Fiction: 1,009
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 2,509

Total Salable for Month: 000

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 115,849

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 24,884

The opening scenes for both the Penumbra “Hyperspeed” story and the Spindles “Fairy Tale” story are finished. I’m not too happy with the way either are going, though, which is part of the reason why it’s been slow going. I think with both my protagonists are incorrect. Both characters need to be in their respective tales, but I don’t think they should be the main characters.

I will think on it more tonight and see what I can come up with for tomorrow’s writing.

• Blog Posts: 113
• Planning and outlining: 000
• Short Fiction: 1,200
• Novel Fiction: 000
• Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 1,200

Total Salable for Month: 000

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 113,040

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 24,884