Some Progress

 

In a couple of weeks I will see my rheumatology consultant for a review. It's been a year since she started me on medication and roller-coaster ride doesn't really quite capture the picture of what is has been like. For those of you old enough to remember corporal punishment at school, think being smacked across the back of your hand everyday while riding a roller-coaster.

OK. Perhaps that's over egging it a bit.

So what little I've done is disappointing at one level, but the fact I've done something at all is a testament to my sheer bloody mindedness.

Looking back over the last year this is where I am:

Two Moons: 16,146 words
Red Dog: 9,581 words
Dead Dogs: 3,443 words
The Bureau: 67,943 words

I've mentioned previously that I was up to around 20,000 words on Two Moons, but realized I was mixing up my stories and have spent a lot of time breaking apart what scenes went with which story. Hence I now have three novels as works in progress.

The Bureau has grown but I haven't gotten around to finishing the revision, which has mostly been driven by what I learnt after three months of doing various online writing courses with Dean Wesley Smith and Kathryn Kristine Rusch. Their workshops are excellent.

My target was to write 1,400 words per week. We are at week 33, which means I should have 46,200.

If I'm generous, I've managed 25,328 words. Though if I take twelve weeks off for the courses then that comes 16,800 lost, so a revised target number would be 29,400 words.

Short by four thousand and a bit words. It is what it is.