Back to the grind

I survived Thanksgiving.  Now I just have to get back in the rhythm of writing.  I haven't worked on Mercury since, uh, Tuesday, I think.  If not for my outline, I'd probably already have forgotten what the story was about.

I'm also trying to think up alternate titles.  I've been using Venus, Mercury, and Mars as working titles, and I suppose they'll do okay as official titles, but I don't want to leave any stones unturned.  I also have to consider cover design and how the length of the title will fit.

In the meantime, here's something totally unrelated: Ned Beatty talking about the primal forces of nature:

Progress Report and other news

I've broken through 40k words.  I haven't written as much as I hoped when I began the draft, but I'm closer to the end than the beginning.

This draft is ending up a little shorter than I envisioned.  I'm not sure if there's enough story left to punch through 50k.  I've still got a lot of things to add in--my works tend to grow during the revision phase--but it's still looking like it'll be a 60k or so work when it's ready for beta reading.

I guess we'll see.  *shrug*

In other news, Hugh Howey is back in the New World.  I'm glad to see he didn't get swamped by a rogue wave or anything while he was sailing around the Atlantic.  Welcome back, Hugh!  :)

Also, there's a somewhat disheartening piece at The Passive Voice about Amazon's review policy.  Just part of the ever-changing landscape for indie authors, I guess.  To paraphrase Leon Megginson, the winners in the e-book revolution won't be the best authors, or the cleverest authors, or the friendliest authors, but those authors who can most quickly adapt to changing circumstances.

Finally, Thanksgiving is coming up in a couple of days.  Be sure to take a few minutes to consider all the blessings in your life.  Be thankful for them, because things could always be worse.

Progress Report

First draft stands at about 37k.  I'm not pleased with the progress I've made this month.  And I'm probably not going to finish the first draft by Thanksgiving.

The good news is that I've taken a fair number of notes about changes that need to happen.  Those changes are necessary, because the story currently sucks.  :(

I've also got a preliminary outline for Mars.  It still needs lots of fleshing out, though.

Anyway, that's where I'm at. 

In the meantime, here's a cool video:

Added Mr. Wilson to Goodreads

I know, I know... I should have done that a long time ago.  Well, better late than never.

Synced the blog with Goodreads

My posts show up there now.  Not sure if anyone gets any kind of notification or anything.  I doubt it, but I'm not really that adept at navigating Goodreads, so who knows...

New release notifications from Draft2Digital

Got an email today from D2D.  They now offer new release notifications to readers.  What this means is that they'll put a button in the back matter of your book that the reader can click.  Then that reader will be notified whenever I publish something new on D2D.

I logged in to the site and got the message pop-up about it.  I clicked on the "find out more" button.  Two clicks later, Mr. Wilson had the button added to its back matter.  (So they said, anyway.  I didn't find anything to indicate it on the story's layout page.  But I'm sure it's there, or will be soon.)

That's why I love the guys at D2D.  They make it all so easy.  And they're constantly trying to improve their service.  As far as "author-friendly" goes, they're the best around, period.

Next on my wish list: full mailing list functionality.  :D

Progress Report

Broke through 25k today.  If I was doing NaNoWriMo, I'd be halfway to the finish line.

I'm at about the 40% mark of my outline, so I guess the book will be about 60k.  The first draft, anyway--I usually add to the word count during revision.

I've started outlining Mars.  Just the bare bones so far, no real scene descriptions.  I'll gradually fill it out with time.  I outline in layers like that.  *shrug*  Seems to work, since it keeps me from writing myself into a corner.

Progress Report

Up to nearly 17k words.  That's after two weeks of writing, so a little more than a thousand words a day.

This is not good.

I was hoping to have a higher rate, but it just hasn't happened.  And that word count may shrink in the next few minutes, because I'm not sure about the latest scene.

*sigh*

Oh, well.  Off to go crunch out some words.