quickie writing update
On my own writing front: put the finish on the first draft of the first Baldwin Quentin Clark V story tonight. This is the one I started over the weekend, averaging 1,000 words a day for four days. Then I didn't write at all yesterday, and sat down tonight with the goal of finishing the draft. Added 800 words and hit that stage of writing that jaylake describes as "oh my god this sucks no one will ever buy it or read it." And then when I tweeted/FB'ed my anguish over having to trash the 800 and rethink, someone on Twitter challenged me to add 224 words to make the existing 800 work.
Well, I kinda rose to the challenge. I added more than 224 words, certainly, while only deleting a relative handful of the 800 (at a guess, I'd say I deleted 50-75, and rearranged the order of the survivors a bit), bringing the story to a close at just about 5,900 words.
I found a name for the story, too, in a line Baldwin drops near the end: "The After Party."
Which made me decide I'm going to name all of my Baldwin Quentin Clark V stories after bands I know. So expect stories called Hollywood Ending, Almost Hero, Sandlot Heroes, Kicking Daisies, The Dalliance, The Vapid .... and whoever else I decide to use.
In other news, not of my own writing but of writing that's about me: Joseph Pittman, author of the Todd Gleason crime novels and the Lindens Corners series, is writing a story for my SEVEN TORTURES OF ANTHONY CARDNO anthology, and he sent me the first lines of the story. (Can I tell you how excited I am that Joe is putting me in a Todd Gleason story? Well, I am!) And he's given me permission to share it to drum up interest. So here it is:
It wasn’t so much that Todd Gleason didn’t appreciate the fabulous figure wafting past him, and normally his eyes would have followed her to the ends of the earth and wherever after they led, whether heaven or hell or some special place only she knew about, but in truth, the guy seated before him had the better figure.
“I’m sorry,” Todd said, “did you say six figures?”
Well, I kinda rose to the challenge. I added more than 224 words, certainly, while only deleting a relative handful of the 800 (at a guess, I'd say I deleted 50-75, and rearranged the order of the survivors a bit), bringing the story to a close at just about 5,900 words.
I found a name for the story, too, in a line Baldwin drops near the end: "The After Party."
Which made me decide I'm going to name all of my Baldwin Quentin Clark V stories after bands I know. So expect stories called Hollywood Ending, Almost Hero, Sandlot Heroes, Kicking Daisies, The Dalliance, The Vapid .... and whoever else I decide to use.
In other news, not of my own writing but of writing that's about me: Joseph Pittman, author of the Todd Gleason crime novels and the Lindens Corners series, is writing a story for my SEVEN TORTURES OF ANTHONY CARDNO anthology, and he sent me the first lines of the story. (Can I tell you how excited I am that Joe is putting me in a Todd Gleason story? Well, I am!) And he's given me permission to share it to drum up interest. So here it is:
It wasn’t so much that Todd Gleason didn’t appreciate the fabulous figure wafting past him, and normally his eyes would have followed her to the ends of the earth and wherever after they led, whether heaven or hell or some special place only she knew about, but in truth, the guy seated before him had the better figure.
“I’m sorry,” Todd said, “did you say six figures?”