Doing Nanowrimo, albeit sluggishly

I entered Nanowrimo on November 9th at the urging of a fellow friend and writer. My word count is abysmal, and the choice is insane, since I've just started a new job that requires a huge time commitment. But I shall soldier on until the end.

Exciting new ideas

I came up with an entirely new direction for the middle portion of my novel, and it also gives my antagonist something more interesting to do. Actually, it's based on a concept I've been wanting to work into a story for some time, but couldn't find the appropriate venue for it. Well, now I have it. My current draft will require a fair amount of rewriting; the change will, in fact, affect the whole tone and direction of the book. But it will make it far stronger as well. Now I've got that rush of excitement that comes with a new idea. So much to do!

Slogging away

As the summer chugs along in its lazy way, so does my writing. After a couple of unplanned mini-writing vacations, I've launched myself back into Slideways Jalousie full steam. I keyed in the first words of Chapter Ten this evening, and they're good ones. This is the first project I've worked on where I felt just as excited at Chapter Ten as I did starting Chapter One. I'm taking that as a good sign.

Milestone

I passed the 10,000 word mark on my current draft of "The Slideways Jalousie" this evening. I'm also revising my short story "Think of the Children"; thanks to Karen, Laura and Rachel for taking the time to critique it.

Plugging away

I'm almost finished with Chapter three of the second draft of my current novel, tentatively titled "The Slideways Jalousie". Actually, I only wrote about 20,000 words of the first draft before I decided the story needed major revisions and started over at the beginning, keeping some portions intact. So maybe draft 1.5 would be more accurate. Also, I'm pulling out an older story I wrote and working on a second draft of that. That one's titled "Think of the Children". Back to work.

Blog dedication and first post

This blog was created in response to the news that I've made my first professional writing sale. It's a short story entitled "Kairos", which will be appearing in the January 2009 issue of Beyond Centauri. BC is a sci-fi/fantasy magazine geared towards kids and young adults. I'll have more details about when and where you can pick up a copy as the publication date approaches.