Category: Fiction

  • Quick Update Because It’s Laundry Day: 1786 words, and cool twist!

    Quick Update Because It’s Laundry Day: 1786 words, and cool twist!

    So here’s where I started this morning. I began with a negative word count because when I read through what I wrote yesterday, some stuff had to go. Some days the destruction is a LOT worse than this, but I did want to show that when I start in, my negative word counts do show…

  • Beat the headache. 1278 new words, and a good twist.

    Beat the headache. 1278 new words, and a good twist.

    First, the headache, because it was the biggest obstacle I faced this morning. Over the holidays, we did an intentional, planned drift away from keto so that we could have some fun foods. Pies, you know, and cookies, and stuff like baked potatoes and stuffing. We hadn’t done this before, but we hadn’t dealt with…

  • Oh, BOY! Good, good, writing day today.

    Oh, BOY! Good, good, writing day today.

    So… this morning I got my favorite line so far in the Ohio #2 novel. It’s subject to change during revision, of course, or outright deletion if I come up with something better, but right now it’s this. If you can catch them, you can eat them. Can’t throw in the context, except to note…

  • An Easier-Than-Expected Day on Ohio #2

    An Easier-Than-Expected Day on Ohio #2

    I’d written a small chunk of an earlier version of this first draft that mostly didn’t work, so I bailed on it partway though and started again, moving from Apple Pages back to Scrivener at the same time. Today, I hit the point where I was able to reuse a good piece of what I’d…

  • A good and angry Tuesday – the novel’s midpoint conflict comes to life

    A good and angry Tuesday – the novel’s midpoint conflict comes to life

    Was at work by nine (I slept in a little) and just finished my words. Goal is always 1250, and I got 1412 — so I came out a little ahead. If you look at my screen shot of the word counter, you can see that I could have quit at 1242 and still stayed…

  • Resetting my Ohio #2 deadline… Because “holidays and weekends” are a real thing. And so’s math.

    Resetting my Ohio #2 deadline… Because “holidays and weekends” are a real thing. And so’s math.

    I had to redo my schedule. I forgot about holidays, about taking time off — and I also forgot to figure weekends — and the fact that I don’t write on them — into my schedule. To hit my deadline date, I would have ended up trying to hit 2500 words a day, and I’m…

  • The Ghost Who’ll Be Coming to Ohio

    The Ghost Who’ll Be Coming to Ohio

    The text message at the top of this post (which I sent to Matt at 3:34 AM on 12/6/20) includes the date and time because my half-sister, Julie, died in 2016, before her birthday, which was December 3rd. I got the news of her death from my older son, Mark, who called Matt while we…

  • Conflict With the Neighbors!

    Conflict With the Neighbors!

    Things are getting dangerous in my little fictional town — and the neighbors who have been supportive until now are having big, anxious second thoughts. The scene didn’t go quite the way I expected… and I had a moment in the middle where I didn’t know how it was going to work out. And then…

  • Writing the middle, where things just got tougher for my hero

    Writing the middle, where things just got tougher for my hero

    Today’s words started out being pretty difficult to get, but at the point where I got to bring in some experiences I had as a kid a long way away from Ohio, it turned fun. And from fun, it got strange, and from strange it moved to one of those little lightbulb moments where you…

  • Sometimes the bear eats you… 833 words, but I do like them

    Sometimes the bear eats you… 833 words, but I do like them

    I started in this morning at about 7:30 AM, got going at a pretty good clip, and then realized I didn’t like what I was getting. So I deleted that, came at it from a different direction… And didn’t like what I was getting. So I tried a third time.  As I write this post,…