Writing Log 11-12-11

What you see there, in all its poor resolution glory, is my victory over the 200,000 word mark. Note the beautiful red letters there? Word count achieved. You can also see the beginning and ending dates for the goal, there, as well as the number of days left. I have almost 50 days between now and the end of the year, and I've already hit that goal that I, frankly, thought was rather impossible to get, what with all of the work I have to do instead of writing.

I'm absolutely thrilled. Thanks to the sacrifice of my wife, I've managed to get deep into this book--spending more time than just a hobby probably ought to take. And I feel really good about it. Like, really, really good. I know it's just an arbitrary number, but it's one that has taken a lot of effort and ought to be memorialized somehow.

Anyway, I think I'll lay off the goals for the rest of 2011 (though I'll continue to write each week, as usual), and, starting in January, try to figure out what my next benchmark will be. Of course, it was easy to say that I wanted 200,000 words by Dec 31, since I knew the story could easily contain that many words. I don't know if Writ in Blood will actually get 300,000 words total. I suppose it could. I just don't know how much longer the story will go, which makes the estimation a little tricky.

Before I go, I do want to document that, though I'm not terribly pleased with the QUALITY of the writing over the last few weeks, I am pleased with the QUANTITY. That being said, today worked in large part because I knew what to do with the opening of the chapter--which is often the hardest part. I planned some of the phrases in my head, moving them around a little and trying to get them right before I even had a chance to sit down at the keyboard. Once I started writing, it ended up shifting (quite a bit actually; I think it's because I am working so hard on keeping any version of the 'to be' verb out of the narration. Some of the sentences suffer because of that slavish devotion), but it gave me a solid basis off of which I could work. Because of that earlier preparation, I was able to move on with the chapter and eventually overshoot my goal by 700 words.

Not too shabby.

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