30,000 words

Today was one of the best days in awhile. I've been avoiding writing about the grandmother in my story (mostly because I don't know enough about the grandmother to start...), but prior to sitting down today, I had a great image in my head of the grandmother in the hospital bed unable to eat.  How would my main character and heroine, T, cope with this? How could this scene show what she was all about? So I jumped into the interchange, and before I knew it (and despite numerous interruptions which didn't seem to matter as the scene flowed delightfully wonderfully...) I had over 1,000 words.

Now I've crossed into the 30,000 range. And I will try to remember this: if you're stuck, one nearly sure-fire remedy is to write through it. Just write what you think you know and the rest will come. Your characters will start talking to you and show you the way.

Yippee!

The rain has stopped, and the mist is wisping through the distant mountains. I'm off for my walk to celebrate.

Whales and Goals

I took some time off, but now I'm back. Some of it I can blame on the humpbacks in the Narrows. They're never here at this time of the year. So who could resist watching them bubblenetting, their huge tails rising up from the water?

But back to goals. I've got some new ones, and I feel great about them.

Goal # 1 - 40,000 words by January 1, 2011
Goal # 2 - 60,000 words by April 2011
Goal # 3 - First draft by May 2011

I think they're do-able, and I feel good knowing that. I just have to keep my eye on the story and put in my time, right here, at the computer. Every morning, even weekends (?). The calendar idea really helps - putting down in each day box how many words I wrote, and how many I have total.

Here are the results for today: 773 words; 29,812 total. Yay! That means I have about six weeks to write the necessary 10,000 words for Goal # 1.

I think I'll go have a cookie to celebrate.