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As promised (threatened?) I've created a new blog solely to post word counts and
other obsessive production related data. I will not comment except to say I find it very helpful to post this crap, and I'm sticking with what is working.
I've got a story going up tomorrow on the great new webzine Lenox Avenue which is now entering it's second year, I believe. I'll post a link to the actual page of my story when it goes live. Today is my day off, and I'm just hanging out, relaxing, reading, thinking about what I'm going to do next. Here's some stuff that's occured to me based on current reading and watching.
Chuck Palahniuk's Lullaby ... better than ... Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club ...
David Milch's Deadwood (HBO) ... better than ... The Sopranos ...
Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm ... better than ... David & Seinfeld's Seinfeld ...
John Grisham ... better than ... you might think .
Richard Yates ... better than ... anyone else I've read in at least five years.
Conducting myself as befits myself ... better than ... joining a writer's organization only to find that the officers have recently implemented a "code of conduct" voted on only by the officers and NOT the entire membership. Non-binding of course (like the pirate code according the Geoffrey Rush, I suppose? -- "not actually a code, more like guidelines really") The last time a saw a "code of conduct' it was in an new employee packet and I was on my way to pee in a cup. But hey I need a paycheck. I don't know that I need this bullshit though. Can't say too much more about the SFWA code of conduct, however. I mean, I haven't even seen a copy.
That's it. This draft is done. Some of the scenes are very cursory and have to be fleshed out, but the bones are there. Better than that, it does have (miracle of miracles!) a spine, a structure. Holy crap.
It gets set aside for a few months will I continue work on my other project. Then I'll read it and we will see. Right now I think it is something that can be worked with. And something with a bit of potential. And it is something that did not exist a month ago. Holy crap again!
Achieved the goal today with five days left to spare, so I'm revising the goal to be 60,000 for the 30 day period. Should reach the end of the draft of this slim unmarketable novel by then, as I'm almost to the end right now. Then I'll take a couple weeks (till March 14) going back and adding to some of the scenes and subplots that I gave short shrift to. On March 14 the whole thing goes into a receptacle of some kind, either a storage receptacle to cool for a couple months, (till after Wiscon, at least) or into the trash. We'll see.
I'll continue to post additional word counts through Day 30 (Feb 28) but after that, if I on anything like this again, it will be recorded on a separate blog created for that purpose. Posting it somewhere, however, has been an incredible motivator (along with being about to tear up the NRA check when I reach 60K will be!) and I plan to use some form of it again, but word counts are just too boring to fill up this blog with much longer. Very soon it will end!
Tommorrow or the next day should do it. I have the day off work and only 3,723 words to go.
Fantasy: The Best of the Year
"Super-Villains"
Corpse Blossoms
"Wednesday"
From the Borderlands
"The Food Processor"
Mota 3: Courage
"The Crossing"
