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Day 21 of 90

Small progress this morning. I clocked in with about 1300 words. Not too bad, but I think Cmdr. Drake’s through-line is a bit thinner than Emerald’s or Leena’s. And this is a good thing. The hero and...

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Day 22 of 90

Not a lot of notes today. I’ve decided I have enough now to start piecing things together. I compiled my 55k worth of notes out into a manuscript this morning. Most of what I’ll do this week is go...

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Day 23 of 90

No new story revelations at this point. I’m still organizing notes, shoring up a few character motivations, and organizing possible chapters in Scrivener. This will likely be the progress for the rest...

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Day 24 of 90

Wow, kind of late with today’s post. Sorry about that. I had to work late doing day job stuff last night, so I slept in later than normal (but I created a really kick-ass map thingy for work). I was a...

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Day 25, 26 of 90

For the second time in the writing of this novel, I have an outline (for reference, this is the first time) and it is a thing of beauty. Clearly, I need to dedicate a longer amount of time to the...

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First Draft of “Night Witches” Complete

I managed to complete a short story today. It’s tiny, coming in at around 1700 words. It’s a WW2 horror story, very much in the style of an old Twilight Zone episode. It was hecka fun to write, despite...

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Day 30 of 90

Yeah, I skipped a couple of days in the process. I think that’s acceptable, I’m not working on actual prose that will be the first draft of the novel. Let me tell you, that feels like real progress. I...

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Day 31 of 90

Chapter 1 is complete! Chapter one is about 5 scenes with a total word count of about 6k. Here’s my fancy word count meter: The process is working well, so far. I wake up, review yesterday’s writing...

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Day 32 of 90

Scene 1, Chapter 2 is done! Ha, that’s kind of deceiving, isn’t it. That word. Done. In the software development world we have a concept called done-done, because developers, no matter what you ask...

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Day 33 of 90

Chapter 2, Scene 2 is done, but not done-done! Okay, that joke is going to get old. Well, I made good progress this morning. Speaking the story into the Olympus is getting easier. I still need a short...

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Day 34 of 90

Writing is puking in your typewriter in the morning, and then cleaning it up in the afternoon.

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On Keeping Your Mouth Shut

You’re allowed to not comment. It’s true. If there’s a public discourse, and someone says something you disagree with, nothing compels you to speak. I have to remind myself of this fact when I hear...

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Day 37 of 90

Day 35 and 36 were spent at FenCon. It was a lot of fun this year, more so because my daughter Katarina was in attendance. It was her first real full weekend con. We went to a few panels together, and...

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Day 38, 39, and 40

I’ve gone off track with my daily writing routine. Early mornings are difficult when the world stays up past 9 pm. Despite numerous distractions over the past few days, I’ve still managed to maintain a...

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Day 41 of 90

Word count is steadily rising. The last few days have been difficult. I’ve fallen out of the routine of waking early. I think that’s both hurting my productivity, and I just don’t think the scenes are...

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Days 42-51 of 90

I let myself fall behind in my updates. However, the wordcount continues to steadily climb. I had a slight mental setback. Well, that and I was distracted by a short story. I worked through enough of...

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Submission Stats & Strategy

Write as many great short stories as I can, get them revised to a point where they aren't a total embarrassment, send them to the highest paying, eligible publication, and keep sending them rejection...

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The Never Ending Short Story Ends

The science fiction short story I worked on all weekend finally came to an end. I closed it out at about 5k, which is a good size, if I can keep it. This is one of the first stories I’ve taken from a...

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The good, the bad, and the not so ugly

As you may have noticed, there haven’t been many novel updates. That’s because there haven’t been any updates to the novel. Upon reevaluating my story, I’ve come to the conclusion that my heroine was...

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More short fiction in the works

It looks like short fiction will be my game of choice for a while. I’m now incredibly jealous of people who can finish a novel. I’ve started a few. I’ve only reached the last page with a couple, but I...

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Latest short story complete

I put the finishing touches on “The Ghost of the Crooked Tower”. It came in at around 3.5k, which is about the length I’m aiming for these days. I’m happy with this one. It went on the page exactly how...

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Day 11 of 90

I managed about 2500 words of notes today. Most of these were focused on what sprung from the daily writing exercises. Today it was apparent I need to work more on the secondary characters. Today I...

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Day 12 of 90

Very productive morning. I managed a good hour’s worth of recordings. More protagonist and antagonist studies along with some thoughts on the second act. Again, lots of notes. I also worked on my...

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Days 13, 14, and 15 of 90

I didn’t post this weekend, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t stick to my daily writing goals. In fact, I think I put down about 10k in notes. And I’ve gotten better with the transcribing. Hopefully, I...

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Day 16 of 90

Good stuff today. If I’ve learned anything big from the 90 day novel it’s this, during a story’s early brainstorming stage, hold the story together in your head loosely. This has been a tremendous help...

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Day 17 of 90

This is the end. Well, at least I worked up to the ending with my loose story concept. I have through-lines now to explore for each of my main characters. I’m still a bit in the shade when it comes to...

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Day 18 of 90

Great progress on some character work today. I’ve dived back into Leena’s (my main character) point of view. Revised some earlier thoughts on her motivations and social interactions based on her...

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Day 19 of 90

Today’s progress amounted to a pass through Leena’s throughline. I’m doing this for each of the characters. Emerald, the big moth creature, who is the closest thing to an antagonist is next. This whole...

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Day 20 of 90

I’m sitting at about 55k in 0 draft material. So what is a 0 draft? I think it’s different for each writer, but what seems to be a universal truth about the 0 draft is that it is shared with no one....

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Honorable Mention and Other Writing News

Well, I made Honorable Mention in the 4th quarter volume 31 Writers of the Future contest. This is good news. It means my fiction is reaching closer to professional quality. But it’s not good enough to...

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