Ever have one of those evenings when you were going to get stuff done, kept getting interrupted and by the end of the day, you'd actually accomplished stuff anyway?

As I had mentioned, I'm doing a little writing on Harbinger at lunch. It's amazing how much fifteen minutes here, twenty minutes there adds up. I typed in all the stuff I'd put together at work today and discovered I'd added 2183 words and finished off the second chapter. I'm noticing the chapters I'm writing for new version of the story are longer than my normal 3-4,000 word chapters. This is good, I think. They're a little more meaty, but there's stuff going on that's setting up the rest of the book. As I may have mentioned before, my "throw-away" character from the old first chapter has now morphed into a major character and second only to the "main villain" in importance to the story. His thread in the original Harbinger was there to be a catalyst, but after rethinking what I had done in the story and how I wanted to change it, I think he's going to be the main sub-plot that will bedevil our young heroine as she negotiates the rest of the story.

(cue evil laughter and rubbing of hands here)

Still, as I started transcribing, I spotted someone I needed to speak to on Skype and buzzed them. It turns out they won't be able to go to Archon this year, which is too bad. I haven't seen Thyla since the time I shared the table with the Sluggy Freelance people at Dragon*Con and it would have been cool to get to visit again. I still have good memories of hanging out with them and I think I actually sold more Sluggy stuff at the table than joesunday, Pete and Thyla did combined. I know I sold more of their stuff than I did my own. *sigh*

It was a good talk, but that took almost an hour from my writing. I jumped back into the transcribing and then I got a phone call from a friend. Definitely needed to take this call and we visited for about a half-hour before she had to call someone else. So, I jumped back onto Harbinger one more time. Finished the transcription, saved it, opened the unnamed project and glanced at my clock. Aauugh. I had to think. I had met my quota already with what I'd typed, but that was stuff I'd written earlier and it wasn't the unnamed project which does have a rough deadline.

So, I grabbed my notebook, checked the chapter breakdowns and completed Chapter Two and got started on Chapter Three. Ran a quick word count and lo and behold, I had 1073 words on the Unnamed project done. Don't know where they came from, they just sort of flowed out of my fingers and they all made reasonably good sense. Sure, some may not survive the rewrite, but they're not full of the stink, so I'll take solace there.

Oh, and I completed one of the two big writing projects at work today also. So, I guess this should go down as a "good writing day". I need to see if I can find a Snoopy dancing near his typewriter pic so I can add that for a "good writing day" icon.

That's it for now. Time to finish my glass of water and hit the sack. Tomorrow, I get to wrestle with the monthly financials. My favorite pasttime . . . not.
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Words for Today

3256 / 1000 words. 326%

Progress on Harbinger of Darkness

9880 / 120000 words. 8%

Progress on Unnamed Project: SotH

4796 / 100000 words. 5%

Words for 2008

160508 / 366000 words. 44%

Three big projects coming up at work and for once, I think I'm actually holding my own. Of course, 90% of my time is still spent fighting Microsoft Word's inability to format the same thing the same way twice. *Fhtagn* (The Lovecraftians will recognize that word . . . and run.) Still, things are going well and I'm still managing to get in some writing at lunch. I'll probably have more to add to Harbinger this weekend.

Got a copy of The Sky's the Limit and The Quality of Leadership off to my folks tonight. Thanks to the gang at mikescomics who went above and beyond getting me some copies of TQoL. I know Dad loves showing off the books to everyone . . . just hope he enjoys reading them also.

BTW, If you're wanting to pick up the Doctor Who book, don't wait for Amazon to get around to bringing it over here, Mike's is the way to go. (This was a completely unpaid and heartfelt plug. I like supporting people who take care of their customers.)

Had to take the Matrix in for an oil change, so while wishweaver was playing with her new shiny (see this entry for more raving about her new iMac. Well, almost new . . . it's refurbished, but it's definitely new to her and it's frappin' HUGE! It's got a bigger screen than our small flat-screen TV. I can't wait to see how it handles a DVD.

Anyway, while I was at the Jiffy Lube, I snagged one of my writing notebooks out of the trunk and spent some quality time writing. Yeah, I guess all that Army training is coming in handy. Not only can I sleep damn near anywhere now, but it seems I can write almost anywhere, background noise notwithstanding. Oh, and by the way , I was not trying to sell books while I was there, for those who follow the NEPAT or the Never-Ending Publish America Thread over at Absolute Write.

(Wow, tonight's theme really seems to be parenthetical asides and inside jokes.)

Somewhere in all this, I did get work done on the unnamed project. I added 1376 words and have completely confused at least one of the main characters. I may need to go back and flesh this scene out a bit more tomorrow night before pushing on (lots of talking, not so much description). I may want to readdress how I build up some of the tension here before I get to one of the early reveals. It's still early, but I'm already having fun with this book and once we get out of the "recap and reintroduce characters phase, it's going to pick up steam in a hurry."

But for now, I'm running out of steam, so it's off to bed.

Night, LJ.
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Words for Today

1376 / 1000 words. 138%

Progress on Unnamed Project: SotH

3723 / 100000 words. 4%

Words for 2008

157252 / 366000 words. 43%

I won't go too far out on a limb, but given May's lack of production, the fact that I've strung three straight days of writing together is encouraging. Looks like things are going to get a little busy at work too, so we'll see how well we can separate out work writing from project writing.

I think this project will start picking up some speed when I can quit looking stuff up. That's the problem with some projects, even when you know what you want to say and you know exactly what it is you are describing, it's the fine details that make or break a project. Yeah, I know, good writing trumps everything, but I'm a historian and getting things wrong, whether it's calling a pole arm by the wrong name or forgetting what level sickbay is on the Enterprise, annoys me.

I feel comfortable with the characters and I feel very confident about the plot. It's those little niggly details that can really add something to a story if they're used right that are slowing me up for the moment. Especially since I'm hoping to use a few of these things later. Sort of a "see, there was a reason for this level of granularity, guys."

Contacted Register.com - still trying to move richardcwhite.com from Register to Sitelutions (my web host). Hopefully, we can get this fixed before I have to pay Register another year's worth of registration fees. Yes, I know my poor web site needs a face lift and I hope to get to that one of these days once I get the other six hundred other things that seem to need dealing with handled.

Also fired off a few e-mails to Archon. I'm hoping to get a small hall table to promote the two new books while I'm there. I like Archon, but I like having a table rather than just wandering around a con. Must be all those years doing comic conventions. I find if you have a table and a half-way decent display, it's a great opportunity to meet new people, pitch your work and meet interesting people. Of course, there's always a few who take a "Hi, how's it going?" as an invitation to hang around your table for hours at a shot, but that's the risks you take by being out in public.

I got started on Chapter Two of SotH tonight, adding 1284 words. Like I said, a tad under what I had hoped for, but after May, I'll take it.

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Words for Today

1284 / 1000 words. 128%

Progress on Project: "SotH"

2347 / 100000 words. 2%

Words for 2008

155076 / 366000 words. 42%

Wow.

At least I almost redeemed myself this weekend. I set out with the greatest of intents to get some major writing done this weekend to get myself back on track. As you can guess from the title of this post, it didn't quite happen.

I did get 2542 words written on Harbinger on Saturday, but that was mostly transcribing what I'd put together over a few lunches during the week. I took the computer with me to go out and write on Chronicles twice on Saturday, but both times, things came up and nothing actually got done. I think I wrote a whole three paragraphs on Saturday and didn't bother trying to count them toward the weekend total. I just managed to stay ahead of my yearly goal.

Today was wishweaver's and my anniversary. Yep, she's put up with me for seventeen years so far and believe me, I appreciate it. We took the daughter-unit out for lunch today and then I went shopping while Wish worked on her mid-term some more. I picked up a wedding present for kradical and terri_osborne, as well as picking up a couple of things for Wish. (Yeah, I know, you're supposed to shop ahead of time, but it took a while to get Wish to give me a hint what she might be interested in. I'm telling you, this girl is hard to shop for. *sigh* Well, outside of getting her iTunes gift cards, that is.)

We went out for dinner tonight to our favorite Japanese steakhouse and had a nice conversation with the couple who were sitting next to us at the hibachi grill. Yeah, we splurged a bit, but the meal was nice and it was good to just relax and not worry about school, house or work for a bit. She liked her presents (huzzah!), so I guess she'll keep me around for another year. *wink*

Came home and started work on the sekrit project. I'm a little nervous about getting started without the contract, but I'm going to take the editor at her word until events prove me wrong. The first chapter is kind of short, (1063 words), but there was a great stopping place and it feels like adding any more is simply just padding. I'd rather save the words for the end of the book since I usually run over my word count anyway on the first draft.

I would say, "Hey, Glen Cook gets away with two page chapters in his latest book", but then again, he's Glen Cook and I'm not.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. The sekrit project is officially kicked off as of tonight.
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Words for Yesterday

2542 / 1000 words. 254% done!

Words for Today

1063 / 1000 words. 106% done!

Progress on Harbinger of Darkness

7697 / 120000 words. 6% done!

Progress on Unnamed Project:(SotH)

1063 / 100000 words. 1% done!

Words for 2008

153792 / 366000 words. 42%