So, how have I done so far?

Well, by the end of January I have just over 13,000 words. Not as many as I would have liked, but I’m quite happy with the progress so far.

And it’s early days yet.

I’m feeling that I’ve got more comfortable with the writing process and that February will bring major breakthrough in the story and how I plan it out for the next month or so.

Crazily I have a self-imposed deadline of the 31st of March for the end of the first draft, which seems almost impossible at the moment, but I still think I can do it.

Bizarrely, with being behind in my work I feel even more certain I can make up the lost word count!

So with approximately a tenth of the way through the story and two-thirds of my writing time left, I’ve got no time to lose!

Just time for a quick post, I’m tired and it’s late.  (Or it’s late and I’m tired…)

Tuesday, day 3, was a slow day.  Not much achieved and confidence was low.  Days like that will happen and I’m expecting it so that’s fine.

Today, day 4, was better, but it did have the race to the end to get the target I had set myself.

So what’s the score on the door?

10206 words.

And with that breakthough, I’m off to bed.

Sweet dreams.

Eh, yeah.

Go here to make it grow.

So… Second day of the proper grown up serious attempt at writing.

And what do we have today?

That would be 6285 words over all, 2248 of which were written today.

This morning was a dead loss, with nothing produced at all. Just a blank mind. Not nice. This afternoon, though, was excellent. It just happened.

Although having a cripplingly slow typing speed isn’t helping any.

But I’m getting there. 

Incommunicado - Marillion

“I’m a rootin-tootin cowboy, the Peter Pan, the street credibility,

Always taking the point with the dawn patrol fraternity.”

So, heh… a word count for today…

That would be 4037 words.

That’s an almost complete rewrite of the existing chapter one with tons of new content.  And because the ending has changed, I can’t use much of my existing notes for chapter two.

It’s feeling great.  I mean, the whole experience is feeling so good.  I’m really encouraged and I’m really enjoying what I’m writing.

And I know that eventually I’ll have bad writing days, and that’s fine, but right now I’m enjoying the buzz of a day well spent.

As I mentioned previously, I no longer do any work with an after-school care. This frees up under half my week. Work-wise, I only have one part time job and that’s the one with the Church. And that’s only 21 hours a week.

Why am I telling you this?

Well, there was a particular reason why I left the after-school group. A particular reason other than it being crap. That’s a whole other reason, and not one that’s good enough for giving up a paying job.

No, the reason why I’ve cut my hours down is so that I can dedicate working hours to writing and other creative pursuits. And I reckon that the only way for me to get the time and focus my enthusiasm to getting a substantial amount of work done is by treating it like a job.

I’m not expecting wonders here (and maybe I should) but Ruth and I have discussed this at length and we’re both of the opinion that I have to try and make it happen and stop just talking about it.

It’s a bold move, and one that cuts down our income for a good while. But we can survive on an income and a half for the time being. And I’ll get more time to produce work as long as I’m actually producing something.

Initially this crazy plan is for the rest of the month of January and at the end of the month we will see if it’s worth continuing with.

The project is “The Desert Of Zin”, the story that prompted the name of this website. There’s an existing prologue and old notes for the rest of a story that I’ve been working over for the past few weeks. I’ve put in a lot of the groundwork to make the proposed story as strong as possible and I’m confident that come Tuesday morning, the first “official” day of the new writing regime, I’ll be hitting the ground running.

My “working” days will be Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I’ll be posting an update where possible.  And to cut down on the distractions, which are an ever-present problem at home, I’ll be working in the local library.

Hopefully that should do it. 

There are some other creative objects on the horizon but I’m wanting to get this under my belt before entertaining anything else.

I’ll share these other ideas at a later date.

Take it easy,

Al