Week Ending March 22, 2015

One poem today: 246 words.

1,345 words on Wednesday.

1,345 + 246 = 1,591.

Assorted almost-sent query letters would round it up to 2,000 words for the week.

Not very good, but considering the week I had, especially at work...

I'm not feeling bad about it.

One finished short story, and one finished poem, and a few finished query letters.

Really not bad for the week I had, and I've done much worse than this.

I'll do better.  I must do better.

But I'll definitely take 2,000 words for this week, and those finished pieces.

March 18, 2015

Spent 7 hours editing, re-editing, and partially re-writing a short story.  But I turned an okay one into a really good one, I think, with a much better Voice and flow.  I'd always been a bit disappointed in this one, and now I'm not.

3,350 words, at first.

Then, 3,240 words.

Finally, 2,690 words.

When you take out that many words, but still show and say the same thing, it's got to be better.

Since the ultimate goal here is to produce marketable writing, I'll make a guesstimate about the number of new words for today, and then send out the story.

I'll say...half of the final total.

So...1,345 words.

I hope to announce, soon, on another blog, http://stevespublishedwork.blogspot.com/, that this story has sold somewhere.  Wish it luck!

March 9, 2015

Very exciting.  New short story I started today, after reading John Cheever's very good--and very strange--"Torch Song."  Give it a read.

I have no idea why reading Cheever's work compels me to start a short story that only just barely, maybe, resembles something of his.  This is the third time; the other two--non-genre pieces--have sold.  (Knock on wood.)  Anyway, one does not question what stirs awake the Muse.  Or tunes in to my antenna.  Or whatever.

You take it and you run with it.

I ran with it.

Short story, tentatively named "Tito's."  2,179 words.

That's over 2,500 words in the past 24 hours.

If only that could always be the way.

But...why can't it?

March 8, 2015

Been sick with severe inflammation, seemingly everywhere.  I know I'm supposed to write when I'm sick.  I know, I know...

Chapter 47.  Very short chapter.  439 words.

BTW, should blog entries count?  If they do, I've done a few thousand more words in the past few days.

February 28, 2015

I've found, to my dismay, that I'm more of a weekend writer when the career is in full swing during the week.  Like it was this week, when it seemed I had 27 heads and 300 arms, and it all still wasn't enough to do what I had to do.  But at least I'm still writing.

Chapter 46.  2,023 words.

This chapter I'd feared for a week, but when I sat my butt down, it was smooth-sailing, very visual, and fun.  I don't know why I get anxious, still, but I do.  Maybe it's a good thing--shows I care, right?

February 23, 2015

1,305 words of a baseball piece, about how Jason Bay became terrified in my presence at Fenway Park, at the 2009 Boston Red Sox Picnic in the Park.  About half-done.

P.S.--I wasn't the one who terrified him, in case you were wondering.

February 18, 2015

Chapter 45.  2,221 words.