Completion
I've done it: thirteen connected short stories telling the overarching tale of The Long Range are written.
I set myself a monthly deadline, a word count of 6000 for each story, and each tale would appear on my website from June of 2009 through June of 2010. The last four stories went a little over that (the last one, before editing, is nearly double that count). There were a couple of months where I didn't write much, but that was okay because I'd been able to work ahead. I was very productive in March, April, May and June; July, August and September not so much. November, of course, was NaNoWriMo, and I wrote a novel that month instead of a short story. December was a week away from work, and writing, in St. Louis then the holidays and a mini vacation.
I came back strong in January and February, but I'd lost my three month lead time. I was working only about six weeks ahead, then only four. March came along and I got back to six weeks ahead until I ran into a story that had to be completely re-written from top to bottom.
But all that'll come out in the writer's notes after the last story, "Reader", runs through June and into July for a total of seven weeks. I'll remind you, but of course you can pick up the stories in any RSS reader by clicking over to www.jasonarnett.com and catching that feed with Bloglines, or Google Reader, etc...
Anyway, I thought that the two or maybe three people who check in here would like to know that I'm done.
I'm not done writing, though. Now I've got to concentrate on improving by knowing my characters better, building more complete plots and writing outside a shared universe. Now I'm going to dip my toes into the world of magazine submissions with those stories, so they'd better be a helluva lot better.
Lots of work to do. For now, I'm going to enjoy being 'done' with The Long Range. Maybe a cigar this afternoon if it's not raining.
I set myself a monthly deadline, a word count of 6000 for each story, and each tale would appear on my website from June of 2009 through June of 2010. The last four stories went a little over that (the last one, before editing, is nearly double that count). There were a couple of months where I didn't write much, but that was okay because I'd been able to work ahead. I was very productive in March, April, May and June; July, August and September not so much. November, of course, was NaNoWriMo, and I wrote a novel that month instead of a short story. December was a week away from work, and writing, in St. Louis then the holidays and a mini vacation.
I came back strong in January and February, but I'd lost my three month lead time. I was working only about six weeks ahead, then only four. March came along and I got back to six weeks ahead until I ran into a story that had to be completely re-written from top to bottom.
But all that'll come out in the writer's notes after the last story, "Reader", runs through June and into July for a total of seven weeks. I'll remind you, but of course you can pick up the stories in any RSS reader by clicking over to www.jasonarnett.com and catching that feed with Bloglines, or Google Reader, etc...
Anyway, I thought that the two or maybe three people who check in here would like to know that I'm done.
I'm not done writing, though. Now I've got to concentrate on improving by knowing my characters better, building more complete plots and writing outside a shared universe. Now I'm going to dip my toes into the world of magazine submissions with those stories, so they'd better be a helluva lot better.
Lots of work to do. For now, I'm going to enjoy being 'done' with The Long Range. Maybe a cigar this afternoon if it's not raining.