April 30th – 380,984

After a hectic, personal, day yesterday, today is very much more a working one. I’ve managed to stick to my routine, and concentrate on getting the day’s writing done before looking at anything else, and as a result finished 3,572 words just as the clock reached 11 o’clock. That has taken me clear of the 380k mark and this particular manuscript up past the 16k mark.

Now though, other things beckon, I’ve got some e-book only releases to prepare, some book blocks to format and several web site updates to do. However, before I do all that, I have some 38 royalty statements to send out.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, no rest for the wicked.

April 29th – 377,412 – and Amazon on story length.

Interesting food for thought today. Amazon have apparently started a cull on KDP, threatening to remove all short stories below 2,500 words in length, as these don’t provide the reader with a satisfying e-book experience. This doesn’t apply to us, as we don’t accept anything below that length in any case, but we have a number of books in the 2,500 to 3,500 word range. It begs the question just where Amazon are going to stop with this, are they going to say 3,000 next month, then 3,500, then 5,000 etc. etc. Are they going to reach a point where novellas are under threat? How long before the other retailers follow suit? 2,500 has tended to be a common lower limit for a lot of small press publishers over the years, so I expect most of those affected today will be pure self-published works. The next possible tranche, between 2,500 and 5,000 words, will catch a number of larger fish. I still feel aggrieved that Amazon has driven the price of a novel below the cost of a cup of coffee, but you just have to swim with the stream, unfortunately.

On the writing front, it’s been a good day, 3,024 words on this work in progress, which is itself now approaching 13k in length and developing quite nicely. I suspect it’s going to end up as a novella rather than a novel, I don’t think the story has got that many legs, but hey who knows?

Marion has had a good day today, she’s been well enough for me to take her out and indulge in some retail therapy, we even managed lunch out, which is even better from my point of view, even if it was a jacket potato and the aforementioned coffee that’s more expensive than a novel. In fact, I think I’d have to sell 9 of my own books on Amazon today to cover the cost of lunch.

 

April 28th – 374,388.

Today I managed to get off to a quick start, writing wise, so well before lunch I’ve completed my writing stint and hit 3,294 words. The rest of the day is going to disappear in the fog of life, other things to do.

Military strategists refer to it as the “fog of war” – when things are happening too fast for the commanders to grasp and influence, where little things are happening out of sight, little things than can detail the whole battle. For a writer, we have something similar – what I’ve just referred to as the “fog of life”. Where life interrupts our writing time, usually in unpredictable ways.

It can be very frustrating, but we also have to remember life, intrudes for a reason, it’s life – and we have a life outside of our writing, the people around us need us to sometimes put down the keyboard and take up life, interact with the real world. I know, it’s a daunting prospect, but to be fair, quite a rewarding one, when we remember to enjoy the rewards.

April 27th – 371,094

Today hasn’t been the easiest day to deal with. Essentially there’s been a lot of conflict in the air, mostly from a family point of view, but at least that has been resolved.

As a result writing time has been a little curtailed, which is not necessarily the best frame of mind to work on a brand new project. In the end I picked up one of the three ideas that I wrote the starts to during the last work in progress, the third one, and managed 3,044 words on that, taking me past the 370k mark.

Above all else though in the next week I’m going to have to get my editing hat on and get at least a couple of these through the first edit. No rest for the wicked, I guess.

 

April 26th – 368,050

Well I put some extra writing time in today, in order to complete the manuscript I was working on. 4,569 words done and this one is, as they say, in the can. That leaves me with a problem for tomorrow – which one do I pick up and start properly. I’ve had three great story ideas during the time I’ve spent writing this one, and in each case written down the opening scene, or two, so I have a starting point. Ah, decisions… decisions.

In non-writing terms, today has not been such a good day. The blasted car broke down on me this morning, the left front suspension spring snapping and I heard it rubbing against the tyre so stopped to take a look. I managed to nurse it up the road to my mechanic who can fix the spring today, and that’ll cost, but I’m more concerned it the tyre is damaged. That will be a lot more expensive than replacing the spring will be.

Still at least it happened with only me in the car, not when I was transporting Marion anywhere, although this increases the likelihood of us having to remain housebound over the weekend, which as you might expect upset my fast recovering wife almost as much as the prospect of a hefty bill on the car.

 

April 25th - 363,481

Marion’s health continues to improve so I guess the tablets are working, she certainly isn’t asking for other meds as much as she was, which is good. She’s a bit more active today though, but we still daren’t take her out anywhere – I’m afraid the cabin fever is going to have to build till after the weekend.

Although I don’t want to profit from her misfortune, it does mean I’ve had another day where I’ve been able to do more writing. So today was a good day, I’m just one section short of completing the final scene in this book and I can add that one to the edit pile, which I’m going to have to tackle soon, whether I want to or not – it’s just getting too big. I need to get these out on the rounds. At just over 77,500 words written, and about one or two days more to go, it will be slightly longer than book one, but not be enough for that to be an issue.

Still, 3,458 words today written in three short sessions is good progress and I can tick another day done against the schedule. Hitting that schedule each time is becoming, I wouldn’t say automatic but I suspect I will get withdrawal symptoms if I stop trying now.

April 24th – 360,023.

For some reason Wednesday has become the one day of the week where it’s getting harder and harder to find any writing time. Somehow, though, I’ve managed it and hit my quote, 2,900 words which has taken me past the 360,000 word mark.

This work in progress is fast approaching its end too, another couple of days to compete this scene and then a day for the scene that neatly links this book to book three and it’ll be done – and at the right length too, although I think I’ll slip one of the intended scenes for this book in as the first full scene in the new book, just to aid continuity.

I sorted out the title too, and I’ve got a draft cover for it, but that’s with my one woman focus group so we’ll see how that pans out.

All in all, quite satisfied with the progress here, and looking forward to putting it down and starting another one. The problem is I now have more than one prime candidate for the slot, and I don’t know which to pick! Damn it!