Started Mars

Started the first draft.  The goal is to finish it in four weeks.

Progress Report

I'm about 90% done with the mobi edit of Mercury.  So I'm well ahead of schedule as far as that goes.

I've done a little more world-building for the Wheel of Fire series and I've outlined a good bit of Hostile Planet.  This goal--outlining the whole series by April--will be a challenge.  Not sure I can do it.

I'll be starting Mars soon.

I've got covers done for the trilogy and Hostile Planet.  They need a little tweaking, but not much.  I've also got cover ideas for Neutral Ground (Wheel of Fire book 2).

I've got blurbs for Venus and Mercury.

I still think I can write and completely polish four novels this year.  If I can, then that would mean all three books of the Free Space trilogy and the first three books of Wheel of Fire could be out in the fall.  I'd love to see that happen.

Back to the grind...

Fight scenes are exhausting

I'm about halfway through the mobi edit of Mercury.  I just got done revising a major fight scene, and it sort of took it all out of me.  I feel like I've been fighting along with the hero.

I think that's good, though.  Hopefully the readers will feel the same way.  You want them to identify with the hero, right?  So wring them out along with him.

Chapters and goals

I've added chapters to Venus.  I've got forty-seven of them, plus an epilogue.  They're short chapters.

When I write, I don't think in terms of chapters.  I think in terms of scenes, and then I insert asterisk breaks to separate them.  So I have to go in and add chapters after the fact.

I think I've put the chapter breaks in good places, but that's for my beta readers to decide, so we'll see.

I've also re-written a good bit of Act 1.  Hopefully it's more compelling now.

My next objective is to do the mobi edit for Mercury.  Once that's done, I'll send both it and Venus off for beta reading.  And while they're being critiqued, I'll start writing the first draft of Mars.

Intermediate goals: Have both books ready to email out by Valentine's Day.  Finish the first draft of Mars in four weeks.  Outline the entire Wheel of Fire series before April.

Long-term goals: Publish six books in the fall: all three books of the Free Space trilogy, plus the first three books of the Wheel of Fire series.  Hopefully see some real money coming in by the end of the year.

Yeah, this is all very ambitious.  But I think I can pull it off.  And if not, I'll at least get a lot done in the process.

Second episode

Monday night's episode of The X-files was much better.  It felt like everyone involved with the show had gotten back into the old rhythm of it.  Looking forward to the remaining episodes.

X-files returns

So I watched the episode, naturally, after watching Cam Newton and company slaughter the Cardinals.  Back in the '90's, it was some of the best stuff on television.  I had high hopes.

First impression: I like that they re-used the original opening sequence.  Some things are timeless.

After that, though, it got a little "meh." 

Parts of it seemed rushed, like they were trying to cram as much as they could into one episode.  Hopefully the pace will settle down in the coming episodes.

The Cigarette Smoking Man is back.  The guy is indestructible, it seems.  Cancer can't kill him, nor can being blown up by a missile.  Good thing, too, since the show's just not the same without him.

It's always nice to see Rance Howard on screen, though I barely recognized him with the beard.

Anyway, I'm not blown away yet, but we'll see how it goes.  It's only on for six episodes, so there's no reason not to give the whole season a try.

Snow

Yep.  It's here.  First snow of the season.

If I had to guess, I'd say this area averages around one snowfall per year.  Some years it doesn't snow, but most years it does.  And sometimes it snows more than once a year.

We even had a white Christmas one year.  It was in 2010, I think.

Another year, it snowed in May.  It was just flurries, and they didn't stick, of course, but it was actual frozen water falling in the middle of spring.  That was a crazy one.

Snow is rare enough so that it's kind of neat, I guess, but I still prefer summer.  When the temperature is 90 or more, and the humidity is thick enough to cut with a knife, and the air is alive with the sound of cicadas... yeah.  Those are the days when you just want to sit outside in the shade, turn on a radio, and dream up new worlds to write about.