Much as it pains me to do so, I think it’s time for me to temporarily set aside the “new construction” on my steampunk piece. I’ve got more than enough content to make a good pitch for it; so now I need to start cleaning up the first 100 pages (or so) of what I have — and I need to begin work on a proper summary/proposal for it.

See, here’s my Revised New Year’s Resolution:

(1). Write every day.
(2). Begin new projects.
(3). Maintain deadline on projects in the queue.

In addition to what’s already in the works — Fathom / Awake Into Darkness / Those Who Went Remain There Still — I have at least three other novels I’d like to see ready-to-sell by the end of the year. One is yes, the steampunk story; one is a campy modern fantasy-mystery; and one is an extension of the oddball hero/southern gothic short piece I sold to Apex. This means I need about 30,000 words of content each on two more books, plus proposal content for all of the above.

For those of you keeping score at home, proposals/summaries aside, that’s at least 60,000 words of spec content in addition to the (oh, let’s say) 100,000 word novel I need to write between now and July.* I’d also like to do one more short story (which may or may not happen, at this point), and I must squeeze Fathom editorial into that mix someplace (when that one comes down the pike).

So if blogging is generally light except for progress bars, well, there you go. The other day when I posted this little entry, I left out another major point about the writing life: the Ass-In-Chair / Fingers-On-Keyboard factor. Is it boring to read about? Sure, sometimes. It’s not always light and roses and kittens and WEE IMAGINATING! all over the place. Sometimes it’s a miserable slog, and it’s boring to catalog, too — but I feel like it needs to be done. I’m trying everything to keep myself moving, and if that means being accountable to and/or annoying on the internet, so be it.

Anyway. Yes.
Anticipate meter bars.

[Edited to add: And since I've had about half a dozen people ask in the last week or so, here's where I get mine: the Writertopia toolbox. Lots of people also use this one over at Zokutou. I used to use it, but it kept spazzing out on me, so I gave up and moved to the Writertopia one -- even though Zokutou is a bit prettier.]

Project: Steampunk Victoriana
Present word count: 46,508
Other Progress: First 97 pages cleaned to first draft status.
Goal: About 30 more pages up to first draft status before moving on to summary/pitch production.





Project: Modern Fantasy/Mystery
Present word count: 749 words
Other Progress: Noodled with summary/proposal (from a previous draft)
Goal: 30,000 words out of an estimated 100,000





Project: Mega-Hero Southern Gothic
Present word count: 4687 words (short story / already written)
Other Progress: Began a proposal for this book (didn’t get far)
Goal: 30,000 words out of an estimated 100,000







Stumbling Blocks for the Whole Bunch: Focus, focus, focus. I’m still trying to sort out what to work on next/first/etc. Right now this shotgun approach isn’t terribly smooth. Hopefully, once I get these other two partials underway, one or the other will emerge as That Which I Can Concentrate Upon For A Bit.

Total Fiction Word Count for 2008: 25,111 words