Friday, October 8, 2010

Captain's Blog—Winter approaching

Stardate: Stormwindows

Today I had to roll up my sleeves, captain though I am, and wash the screens and windows of the space ship to prepare it for the harrowing journey ahead. I'm hoping that we can do a little remodeling at some point so that we don't have to change out the storm windows twice a year. The Admiral was vital to the process, since he has more muscles than me, and storm windows are kind of heavy, especially for a top of the line space ship like this one.

The question? Will it be enough to withstand the gale force winds of the Snowflake Nebula? We hope so.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Moving in on Nanowrimo

Between blogging on my writing group's blog and writing for Examiner.com, I don't have a lot of extra words left for my personal outlet here, so I'll just write a bit today about what I've been doing.

My goal is to finish my middle grade novel this month, because I want the first draft done and able to gel awhile while I'm knocking out a Nano-novel in November. With that in mind, I'm trying to put out at least 1000 words a day. It's coming along. Some days I don't quite make it, and some days I do extra. From this week on, I'm going to try to push it up and make sure I finish. I'm already over 17,000 words, so I'm almost halfway, I think.

I'm also compiling note cards with scenes of two more books. One is a sequel to my pirates book, mentioned above. I was thinking about how authors sometimes are asked to sign multiple book deals and considering how difficult I would find this to commit to. As I let my mind wander (I always do this while I'm getting ready in the morning) I had an idea for a possible sequel. It sounded even better than the first book, so I started working on scene cards during my daydreaming sessions. Scene cards are great because they allow me to go further ahead in the future of my characters actions than I can without them. The second group of scene cards are for a book I've been considering for almost two years. I think I've finally hit on a plot thread that can take me through the book, and I might try it out during Nanowrimo if I can get prepared in time.

Finally, I'm still trying to get a few Examiner.com articles out each week. This is a little harder, because they count and you have to make them good, not just first drafts. Someone actually reads them, as far as the stats show.

Also, I'm reading a lot right now: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Great Expectations, and multiple children's books as fast as I can for reviews.

So if you're out there, reading this, and you're a writer, what are you working on right now? If you're a reader, what are you reading?