[A]fter all of the presents were unwrapped, and the toys put together, and the Transformers transformed, I sat down to squeeze in a little Christmas Day writing. I managed about 400 words in the “early” session, making today the 157th consecutive day on which I’ve written. But with that writing session this morning, I hit an…
[I] finished the first draft of my first novel back in mid-September, and then decided to let it sit for a few months, allowing me to get some distance from it while I worked on some short fiction. I had in mind getting 4 shorter stories written before returning to the novel in December. In…
[W]hen I woke up this morning, the first thing I did, even before checking to see if the Federal Government was closed1 due to the snow storm, was to check my latest Daily Almanac entry. My Daily Almanac is generated automatically from the data that my scripts collect about my writing, and is sent to…
[L]ast night, while I was restarting1 my current work-in-progress for the third (and hopefully final) time, I passed a milestone. Somewhere during my writing session I passed 250,000 words of fiction written since February 28th of this year. A quarter of a million words! Wow! And when I get my writing in today, it will be…
[T]his is mostly for local folks in the Arlington/Northern Virginia area who happen to be science fiction fans and/or interested in hearing a reading. I will be reading at the Washington Science Fiction Association meeting this Friday, December 6 at 9:45 pm. .@jamietr will be reading at the WSFA 1st Friday meeting Dec 6 at 9:45pm…
[A]fter two-and-a-half months in a drawer (virtual and otherwise), I took out the first draft of my novel in order to begin reading it today, in preparation for writing the second draft. I thought I’d capture the moment in a selfie, with me and my first draft together at the beginning with the idea that…
[F]irst, let me congratulate everyone who participated in NaNoWriMo this year. Writing 50,000 words in a month is not easy. I did not participate this year, but my writing streak continues. I’ve written every day for the last 132 days, and I’ve written 275 out of the last 277 days. I’m fairly certain I’ve written more…
[W]hat with all of the writing I am doing, I am asked, from time-to-time where do you get your ideas what I am working on. Well, I just finished a piece of flash fiction set on Venus (that’s right, Venus). Here are the other projects I am working on (and wrap up) before I start on the…
[D]ecember 1 is only a few weeks off, and while folks doing NaNoWriMo this year will wake up on Sunday, December 1 basking in the joy of getting their 50,000 words1, I will be getting started on the second draft of my novel. I completed the first draft of the novel (my very first novel)…
[L]ast week, I mentioned how I was testing out modifications to my Google Writing Tracker scripts that allows me to track the time I spend writing, in addition to how much I write. Having collected 8 days worth of data, I now present the initial results of these scripts. There are a few limits to…
[P]ractice, practice, practice, practice, practice. That is what writing every day is all about. Blockbuster writers like Stephen King offer this as advice, and it is probably the best advice you can find out there. In my own experience, the more I practice, the better I get at what I am practicing. On September 25,…