lizvogel

May also had writing in it! Eventually.

original short fiction: 1493
The Kitten Case: 2227

Total new words in May: 3720

Which isn't at all bad! Especially since it's only for about two weeks' writing. (Okay, the fact that it was only two weeks is bad, but we work with what we have.) The short stuff was the start of another Dix Dayton story, and the start of a creepy little thing that might end up being called "Dear Ones" (which I've since completed, yay!). The Kitten Case is yet another re-start, but this time it's with actual plot stuff and chapters, so I think it might stick.

Queries sent: 6

Hey! Not bad!

No short story submissions in May, but I do have notions of where to send several this month.

For June: Onward. Finish DDJJ2, figure out where the bleep I stand with various novels, query. The usual.

Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Collective Soul, "Crowded Head"

Getting a meaningful total for March is complicated. The first thing I did that month was scrap Chapter 2 of Falling From Ground in its entirety, which put me down -4567 words right from the get-go. Despite some fairly Herculean outputs here and there, that would give me a net total of 1361 words -- which seems a poor reward for a hard decision that really did need to be made and that will make the book sooo much better.

So instead, I'm going to reset to zero after that point, and just look at new production.

Green Ring: 1382
Falling From Ground: 1013
The Kitten Case: 3533

Total new words in March: 5928

That sounds better than it was; a graphical representation of my output would look like an inverted Bell curve. And The Kitten Case is definitely anomalous data: I attempted a NaNo-style ass-kicking and produced a for-me impressive 3500 words in seven days (six, really, there was a day off in there), but I'm not sure I'm happy with any of it. It may end up going the way of FFG's second chapter, and for much the same reason: For all that I'm a fan of wordcount as a metric, pushing for wordcount when the story's not there just leaves a mess to be cleaned up before the real writing can be done.

Still, it's good to know I can push out that kind of wordcount if I set my mind to it. And while I'm sick, to boot. In fact, all of March's stats get the "while I'm sick" bonus, because while the ugly-cousin flu moved in right at the beginning of April, I wasn't exactly feeling spry and healthy for any of the month leading up to it.

Querying: Queried 2 agents, researched and decided against 4. Mostly from the AAR database trawl.

Submitted 1 story.

There are no goals for April, other than to get my taxes done and to shake this rotten flu.

Current Mood: still sick
Current Music: Jethro Tull, "Solitaire"
Crossposts: http://lizvogel.livejournal.com/176956.html

I haven't been able to write a word for... I don't know how long. Too long. Even the easy thing (Green Ring) won't move forward. (I suspect Green Ring may be at about the 1/3 point, because it's that kind of stuck. But nothing else wants to move, either.) It seems to be a focus issue; I can sit and stare at the screen, but the work just slithers out from under my attention like a wet bar of soap.

The only thing that I've gotten words on at all lately (usually when I'm trying to sleep and am pinned under a cat and can't reach a pen anyway) is something that's about fifth down the to-write list, and I've got more than enough on the front burners already. But it was the only words I've gotten lately, so yesterday I went ahead and started The Kitten Case.

It's fighting me, too, in patchy and absurd ways. (Really? Afternoon or morning? You're going to hang up for half an hour over that?) I had to skip past the opening scene to when developments start happening, and will have to go back and fill in character-establishing later -- perhaps much later. But words did happen, and I even like some of them.

I'm not as happy as I would normally be about producing really quite a decent chunk of words, because I'm afraid this too is going to go thus far and stop dead on me. I'm trying to cash in on some of the NaNo-productivity from a few years ago; I'm working on the "work" laptop, and trying to treat it as work: get up, sit down at desk, produce. Wash rinse repeat. And cobbling together something like the NaNo progress chart that I liked so much. We'll see if it works.

'Cause something has to.

Current Mood: frustrated
Current Music: Kill Dash Nine, "(End of) Forever"
Crossposts: http://lizvogel.livejournal.com/176216.html

Courtesy Janet Reid's blog, a kitten-based inducement to writing productivity: Written? Kitten!

( The drivel I will write for cute kitten pictures.... )

I foresee this requiring considerable editing, if used as an actual production tool, if only to go through and remove the kitten evaluation comments. Also, I don't think it would be suitable for the gritty spy novels; it's just not conducive to maintaining the right mood, somehow. ;-) But unlike Write Or Die, I do actually find it encouraging rather than annoying.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Capture The Flag, "White Water Trial"

I was reading query critique sites last week, as one does when procrastinating one's own submission work. A couple of random comments pinged in my brain, and I decided to try writing a pretend query for an entirely imaginary book, just for the practice.

...I seem to have come up with a new novel idea.

After several days, I'm still quite taken with it. It's a traditional mystery, a little too gritty for a cozy but still fun without being gimmicky. It's even got series potential! I've got a solid grasp of the main character and a significant secondary character (including names), I've already solved a couple of major setting issues, and it gives me an entirely legitimate excuse for thinking about kittens. And best of all, the query's already done!

(Mind you, the query as stands includes a fix-it-later bracket of "[other plot elements]", but that's okay; my ideas usually come like that. I generally subscribe to the E.L. Doctorow approach: "Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.")

Of course, I can't start on it until I finish the current novel-in-progress -- or at least, knowing me, it would be unwise. Which means I'd better get cracking on it, eh? If I finish that on schedule, I might try this for NaNo. Assuming I am sufficiently suicidal or concussed as to sign up for NaNo, that is.

Current Mood: inspired
Current Music: The Cure, "The Love Cats"

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May Word Count

March Word Count

Around the Block

Will Write For Kittens

Doing it backwards... but not in high heels.

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