Writing by the Numbers
Writing by the Numbers
I just sent The General and the Horse-Lord off to Dreamspinner for their consideration. One of the characters was trying to explain the basics of Algebra to a fourteen-year old. I did quite a bit of research, trying to figure out an interesting and unique way to understand algebra- for the character and myself- and since then, numbers and patterns have been popping up like daisies in my head. Here are some random numbers from the new story:
Number of words so far: 54,016
Number of cities in which I worked on the story: 9 (Koro Island, Suva, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, Las Vegas, Sequoia National Park, Fresno, Berkeley, Fortuna)
Number of gay characters in the story: 4
Age of the two main characters: 48 and 52
Number of miles I walked, thinking about the story: (est) 37
Number of days from start to finish writing first draft: 47
Number of albums I downloaded to my Ipod during story: 7
Number of pizzas delivered during story: 9
Number of books purchased during the writing of this story: 11 (this number may be inflated by an excited trip to City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco)
Number of airplane flights during the writing of this story: 4
Number of flying machines in the story: 3- 2 helicopters and 1 hot air balloon
Number of new cars purchased during the writing of this book: 1
Number of manuscript pages: 132
Number of minutes after I sent the story to the publisher that I thought of the first revision: 12
Number of illness/injuries during the writing of the story: 2 blisters, 1 sunburn, 2 migraines, 1 near nervous breakdown, 1 bad stomach ache after going crazy at a fruit stand in the San Joaquin Valley
Number of peaches that I ate and dripped peach juice down my shirt: all of them
Number of times I thought about giving up and never writing again because my writing is crap: 1 okay 2 or 3
Number of trees hugged: 6, but they were Giant Sequoias
Number of homeless people spotted on the streets while walking around while writing this story: about 100
Number of miles driven in new car while writing this story: 1556
Number of times someone in the story used the word fuck: 28
Number of fathers and sons in the story: 3 pair
Number of times I tried to force myself to add more sex scenes, just a simple blow job, would that be so hard?: about 100
Number of sex scenes: I don’t remember. Some. More than a few.