Chapters 3 & 4 Reportage

I'm struggling, there's no doubt about it. I'm hung up on quality, as one of my dear compatriots gently pointed out in an obtuse manner. And she's right. I am missing the point of this exercise. It is all about quantity, not quality. And I am thwarting that goal every time I stop to research a fact or sequence of events. I had Chapter 3 whipped out in pretty good time - if you don't count the time I spent researching stuff. What a wonderful way to suck time away - and I have had major, major suckage, on top of my own special skills at procrastination.

I wasn't much better with Chapter 4. I had it half written by the time my wife got home from work yesterday. Wrote the other half today. So, averaging 2000 words a day, I'll just make the deadline with enough words. That's a consolation, but it means cracking my personal whip harder than I am prone to do to myself.

We'll see.

Characterization is starting to fill out. Still have a few more to introduce. I think I'm going to gloss over his time at Annapolis, other than to lay the foundation for his meteoric rise to Lieutenant Commander. There's the folks in the FBI office in Atlanta, and he's got another love interest or two waiting their turns in the spotlight, too. And oh, yeah. Just who is the bastard that put him in the box?

Anyway, that is where I'm at. On a technical note, I think I've fixed it so you can leave comments - I'd checked a box that shouldn't have been checked. Oops!

Toodles. Care packages with lots of chocolate would be appreciated...

Back On Track

After an unplanned derailment (only villains plan derailments, right?), I'm back on track. Damage is not as bad as it might have been. But, I will have to churn out at least 2700 words a day to finish up where I want to be by month's end. Oh my! Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

And so it goes...

Four Horsemen - Chapter 2 Reportage

I managed to write today despite the Purple Funk remaining from the election yesterday. Life goes on, although "life as we know it" has hit the fan and is no more. I fear for my (and your) grandchildren's future. Four more years of THIS administration and the country will be bankrupt. Bah! Feh! A curse upon their houses.

So today I did another 2800+ words. Not real far behind the minimum output needed to reach the requisite 50K by the end of the month, but I can see where it will take a couple of marathon sessions to get back in the black. It was taking me about an hour to write 500 words today, what with having to stop and research dates I can't remember off the top of my head and other particulars. I did start a "bio file" for the characters as I needed to know minimum particulars about each of the ones introduced so far. I still need to mine the information that appeared in Chapter 1 before too much time has passed.

Aside from spelling checks and adding text where I think it needs fleshing out, I have managed to avoid the temptation to revise extensively. This is a really tough thing - I really want to revise stuff as I go along. But I can see from the relatively slow progress I made today that it isn't advisable.

Any feedback you'd care to leave is appreciated. On the basis of Barb's comment on the AOL Snoozelets, I fixed a broken picture image. Anyway, even if you aren't commenting, I hope you are reading. And I do appreciate it - I know just how valuable reading time is, without being asked to read schlock...

Four Horsemen Reportage - Chapter 1

I wrote on Monday early morning for nearly four hours, then collapsed after getting my wife off to work and caught some zzzzz's until 11:30 or so. Managed to get about 2800 words down in two sittings. It isn't awful, but I am having to really fight the temptation to go back and rewrite. Worked most of the rest of the afternoon on getting the blog template set up. It works, sort of. I'm still scratching at the outside of the box with my understanding of CSS, so it'll be awhile before its up to my expectations and desires for the site. Regardless, Chapter 1 is up for your perusal. Not bad for Day 1. Lots more to be done in future, but not a bad attempt, even if I do say so myself. Now, despite the "Coming Soon" entry that I had posted last week, I really do have a thick skin. So go ahead, let me have it with both barrels, if that's your style of criticism. And if you feel like doing some mindless encouragement, well, that's OK, too. Virtual neck rubs and back massages are gratefully received and virtual meals to sustain me are always appreciated. I'll be a virtual monkey's uncle if I fail to acknowledge your largesse.

Nov. 2 addendum - Anyone else having problems posting to their blogger blogs via email? It used to work fine then all of a sudden in the past week - nada. In fact, I'd sent this report here via email and just got an auto-reply back saying it was, and I quote, "invalid content." It's just bloody text, for land's sake. So I'm posting it manually. Ugh!

I am in a purple funk over the election. I'll get back to writing in a day or two.