It's been a weird writing week.  My writers' group is doing Short Story in a Week, which we do in March and September of every year.  Every full week during the month, the moderator sends out two lists of five words each.  The goal is to write a complete short story in a week, using all five words on one list.  It's a huge amount of fun, and it's ( Read more... )

Whew.  My hands are actually hurting from all the typing today, and that's pretty unusual for me.  I was going to say that I've had longer writing days, but reviewing my spreadsheet makes a liar out of me.  I've had one longer day, and not by much.  What I haven't had is a longer week.  At 13,531 words (5,000 of them today), this is officially the ( Read more... )

I love that Edward Gorey is the subject of today's Google doodle.  Every time I needed to search for something today (and it was a very search-y day, between one thing and another), the doubtful guest sitting there by the G made me smile.  I think the man should have been Mr. Earbrass, though ( Read more... )

I'm now at 121 pages, or just over 30,000 words, and most of the jump from 25,000 was tonight.  I sat down at 6:30, and I've been writing like mad since then.  I wrote 3,000+ words, did two loads of laundry, emptied and reloaded the dishwasher, and made myself dinner.  Of course, dinner was going to be a baked potato, so "making dinner" involved ( Read more... )

Ha!  There's the 25,000 word mark for the current novel.  Not done by any stretch of the imagination, but rolling along quite nicely.  Forward momentum!

"Death Before Dishonor" has been out about a month now, and it's been fascinating to see people's reactions to it.  My experience with feedback on my stories has previously broken down into one of three categories:

1. Critiques from my writers' group: Always useful and sometimes encouraging, but hardly what you'd call a casual response ( Read more... )

Since it seems that I have an infinite supply of excuses for not working on this damn novel, I'm trying something new.  The writing group is doing Book In A Week challenge, and since I actually have to report on my numbers, it kills the excuses.  No one's actually reading this blog except me, but maybe posting pages here will keep me going after ( Read more... )

With "Death Before Dishonor" finally* out, I've been thinking about some of the less definable inspirations for the story.  We've moved, and in the unpacking, I've been revisiting some of my books, including Lois McMaster Bujold's A Civil Campaign.  This section in particular has stuck with me through the years, though I only ever manage to ( Read more... )

I'm feeling unaccountably blog-y tonight, even though this feels like talking to myself.  I blame it on spending five days in Extrovert Mode at Deep South Con 50; I'm having trouble remembering how to shut up.  Not that I'm a particularly good extrovert.  My mouth seems to have two settings: off, and Warp 9.  I was in the latter mode most of the ( Read more... )