RoW80 Update: April 29th!

“‘Where is it?’ the man growled, hissing through clenched teeth. He brought Locke’s face roughly up to his own. ‘What have you done with it?'”

Man, it’s hard to believe it’s Sunday already, time for another Round of Words in 80 Days check-in. My schedule for this week was altered from its usual course, which has me feeling out of alignment with how I usually do things. Thankfully, this hasn’t lead to a cease in productivity, but rather a shifting around of it. I’m still getting the usual stuff done, but it’s passing by in a little bit of a mechanical, almost mindless blur as I juggle work and writing. This coming week will be about the same, schedule wise, so maybe it’ll smooth out and clarify a little, but, I’ll bet that, as soon as it starts to get in a rhythm, it’ll change again.

Ah, well. Such is life. We change, we adapt, we grow. Lather, rinse, repeat. Still, it’s been a pretty productive week on both accounts. I’ve had probably my best week at work in a while, and it’s been a milestone writing week for me, too. Perhaps the little shake-up in the system was just what I needed to nudge me closer to the edge. Let’s have a look and break down the specifics:

Serpent in a Cage: Trudging through the tricksy part of the current scene, I’ve finally managed to break through and get a better flow going. Also, my attention on what I’m writing in my notebooks was on a short story I was trying to get done for Bowlful of Bunnies, but I decided not to include it, and so I’m able to spend that energy on SiaC once again. It’s slow getting back into it again, but I’m sure with all the BoB stuff trudging along, things will pick up again this next week. Page Count: 66/118.

Bowlful of Bunnies: I’ve moved BoB down to the second priority spot right now because this is, mostly, a waiting game. I’ve got my cover artist working on the cover, I’ve got a few betas working on looking it over (and a few more betas I’ll be sending stuff to soon). I suppose I could go through it again, edit some more, edit, edit, edit, but I’m going to give myself a breather from it before bothering to look at it again. Freshen up the eyes, get a few other projects started. Once I hear back from the artist and the betas, then it’s going to be onto formatting, and, lastly, getting it out there. So this week…we wait.

The 100 Books Project: I’ve just finished a book yesterday and I have about ten pages to go in another, so that one should be finished by the end of the day, if not tomorrow. Which is good, because I haven’t finished any in a while, and my numbers are looking pretty sad. But I continue reading, and I’ll continue knocking them out. Books read: 14/100. (3/38 for this round).

Novel No. 0002: With BoB sort of waiting in the wings at the moment, I’ve gone ahead and started up on a potential for the second book I’d like to publish this year. I’m going to start with The Reaping and see where that gets me, and I’ve decided that I’m going to treat these rough drafts much like I was participating in NaNoWriMo: I’m going to try to spew out 1,667 words a day, going back and working on the previous day’s words if I have the time, and see where that gets me. Knowing me, I can see myself potentially trying to juggle more than one rough draft for this, until I know for sure which one I want to stick with. I’m slowly working on outlining The Reaping right now, so I’ll stick with that until I have some other outlines started. I am not going to let myself get too eager about writing that I forget rough outlines. That is always my failing, because I get to a certain point without a plan and it just fades away. Even just this morning, though, I’ve got 647 words on The Reaping, and plan to do the other 1000 when I get home from work. Off to a good start!

Other Novels: The first chapter of To Cross a River of Blood is opening beautifully; it makes me want to go back and revisit the book that falls in between TCaRoB and SiaC so that I can pick at the trilogy all together! It’s a slow picking, but I’ve been having fun with it, too, and I think it helps me to keep the inspiration for SiaC as well.

Featured Story: Last, but not least, a new Featured Story is up! “Dragon Rising” was the first of a handful of stories I submitted to a contest run by Morgan Dragonwillow a little bit ago and, as I sorted through those stories to see which ones I wanted to include in Bowlful of Bunnies, I realized that it’s probably my favorite. Thoughts on it would be greatly appreciated! I wouldn’t be surprised if this develops into a book at some point, too.

There you have it! Things are going well, I’m excited about one project being nearly finished and getting to expend some energy on other projects as well. I have to flee off to work now, but why don’t you check out some of my fellow RoWers here while you’re at it? And, of course, as always, happy writing!