This week things are starting to settle back to normal. An ongoing heater issue at the house may be resolved, or at least properly diagnosed for the first time in a year. We are not holding our breath. Last week I attended a Shut Up And Write over in Berkeley, and was able to write two blog posts, part of a short story, and outline a new novel in a six hour period. I’m looking for one that’s closer to home to attend on a regular basis, and I’ll try to get back up there as I can.
I have been hitting my word count for the most part. I was below my target of five hundred words or one hour of editing a total of eleven days. One of those days was a zero count day. That happened to be the same day my mother had her second cataract surgery, so I’m not beating myself up over that. My overall average is above five hundred, so I am happy.
I’ve taken the first steps in the next phase of being a writer. I have begun the dreaded querying process for Chaos Wolf. Almost immediately the plans I made have been thrown off. As I wrote this post, one of the small presses I was planning on submitting to has announced they are delaying their open submissions until September at the earliest. So now I’m shuffling my plans around.
Right now my plans are to do some sort of check in at the end of month. Part of what discouraged me last year was not seeing any visible progress, even though it was there. This will be a way to combat that. It will also remind me of things that might slow me down that are out of my control. This will be one way that I can track what movement I make.
Yup, that’s the entire editing experience. You shift from a visible, quantifiable yard stick to quality improvements that are hard to measure.