First draft is done!

The first draft of Mars is finished.  Word count is a little over 58,000.  I have some things to add in during second-draft revision, so I'm predicting a final word count in the 62,000-65,000 neighborhood.  This will make it a little shorter than Venus but a little longer than Mercury.  And, of course, all that could change depending on what the beta readers say.

My goal was to complete the first draft in four weeks or less.  I completed it in 24 days.  Mission accomplished.  :D

My next goal is to outline the entire Wheel of Fire series before April 1.  I've already done a lot of world-building.  Last night, I rearranged some of the series arc.  The series is now planned as eight books, not nine.

So Mars is going on the back burner for the next month.  When April arrives, I'll return my focus to the Free Space trilogy.  The year is still young, but 2016 has started out satisfyingly productive.

I'm past the climax

I've written somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 words today.  I don't have the exact number.  But I made it through the climax, and it feels great.  All that's left is the falling action.

The falling action is always my favorite part to write.  Not just because it means I'm about done--although there is that--but because of the way it makes me feel about the story.  In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien use a certain phrase to describe the after-dinner part of Bilbo's birthday party.  He called it "filling up the corners."  This is when the hobbits have just filled their bellies and are now casually snacking.  They're all warm and drowsy and letting their meals digest while still tickling their taste buds with the things they're snacking on.

That's what falling action is like for me.  It's the "filling up the corners" stage of the book.

Once the draft is done, I'm shelving it for a month.  I'll spend March world-building and outlining the books of the Wheel of Fire series.  I won't even think about Free Space until April.  My hope is to get the whole Wheel series outlined by then.  It won't be easy, but I intend to try anyway.  Once April arrives, I'll switch gears again and start revising Mars.

Anyway, that's the plan.  Let's see if I can pull it off.  *fingers crossed*

50k

Broke through 50,000 words tonight.  Only took me three weeks.  If it was November instead of February, I'd be a NaNoWriMo winner.

These last 10k words or so have been tough.  My outline wasn't up to the task, so I've had to do some thinking--which I don't like to do while trying to write--and the book has progressed in fits and starts.  I might be over the hump, though, as far as that goes.  I've got the climax and the falling action left, and I pretty much know how that's going to play out.  So hopefully I can knock out the remainder of Mars quickly and easily.

On the Wheel of Fire front, I've continued world-building.  Just a day or two ago I reached the point where the universe suddenly felt "real" to me.  The characters, nations, and peoples are all starting to jell together.  I'm actually a little excited about it.  It will be a serious challenge to get the whole series outlined before April, but I intend to try.  Once I finish the first draft of Mars, I'll shelve it until April.  That'll let me focus solely on the Wheel of Fire, plus the time away from Mars should help me look at it more objectively when it's time to start revising it.

So that's where I'm at.

And now back to work.

X-Files 2016 - final thoughts

So the six-episode run is over.  Here are my conclusions.

The alien arc stuff seemed rushed.  I didn't really care for it.

The best episode, hands down, was the one about the lizard man.  I especially liked seeing Tyler Labine back as the stoner.  I'll never forget him licking the frog in the Quagmire episode. 

Unfortunately, this was the only truly good episode.  The rest were "okay" at best and cringe-worthy at worst.

Gillian Anderson's voice is... different.  I don't know what happened, but she sounds like she's got emphysema or something.  She didn't talk like that back during the show's original run.  An important part of acting is being able to speak your lines clearly, and her raspy voice detracted from her performances.  If she's ill, then I sincerely hope she gets better.  (Or got better, since the show was filmed before it aired.)

Politics.  The show was always political, but I don't recall it being so blatantly partisan.  Maybe it was and I just don't remember.  But if it was, it wasn't enough for me to notice it.  I noticed it now.  In the show's original run, the whole appeal of the conspiracy stuff was that it was above partisan politics--it didn't matter which party was in power, because the shadowy guys behind the curtain were going to do their thing anyway.  That was what made them truly frightening.  The partisan snark in these new episodes played against that to the show's detriment.

Resurrections.  If the Cigarette Smoking Man can be blown up with a freaking missile but still be brought back to life, then the same can be done with the Lone Gunmen.  I always loved the scenes with Frohike, Langly, and Byers.  They were, frankly, the best characters on the show.  They should have brought back the Gunmen.

Conclusion: It was nice seeing The X-Files on the air again, but not nice enough to make me want a new season.  I enjoyed these six episodes, more or less, but I'm also glad they're over. 

Thanks, Fox Network, I guess.

Now bring back Firefly.

Progress Report

I've written 43,395 words in Mars.  The action is about to start racing towards the climax.  I'm still on track to finish within my four-week goal.

I'm looking forward to finishing the draft.  I like coming up with new story ideas, and I like seeing the finished product, but I don't like the actual "writing" part.  Necessary evil, though.

Progress Report

My goal was to finish the first draft of Mars in four weeks or less.  Two weeks are now in the books.  Two to go.  My word count stands at just over 38,000.  I'm still on schedule to beat the deadline, I think, but I've been losing steam lately.  We'll see how it goes.

I've fleshed out a little more of the Wheel of Fire universe.  I still need to do actual book outlines, but I've got some very basic arcs down for characters and nations.  It's getting there.  Having the whole series outlined by April will be a challenge.  However, as soon as I wrap up Mars, I can devote more time to outlining.  So I'm still hopeful.

So that's where things stand at the moment.  Now... back to work!

Progress Report

My word count for Mars broke through the 30k mark.  I'm somewhere near the halfway point, I think.

I'm kind of dragging, though.  I made some real goofs, too.  Fortunately, I noticed them and corrected them.  But they were the sort of mistakes that make readers roll their eyes at you and snort with derision.  I really hope that doesn't happen again.

Maybe I'm getting burned out by trying to write too fast.