Late WIP Update 10th Apr 2015

The above illustration is apropos of my previous posting about Cordwainer Smith, this being the magazine where I read The Lady Who Sailed the Soul all those years ago.  The image on the cover enthralled me, and I found it while reading this blog, which is doing something rather interesting by posting commentary on old SF magazine stories, from the late fifties onwards, as if they were being read in real time.  

Quite nostalgic.

I've been away at the British National SF Eastercon, Dysprosium, and I will be writing a report soon.  

In the mean time I've spent my time entertaining friends and winding down after four days of fun, and having to deal with three to four hundred emails that were waiting for me.  It seems that there has been another explosion of fannish outrage on the internet while I was gone, which can best be summed up by reading Peter Watts' blog.

As for me I've been having far too much fun, see above.

My only concerns were would I be able to finish the first revision of my second novel before going to the convention.  The answer is yes.  I managed to do a rough edit of the remaining 36,000 words of Strike Dog by late Thursday night.  So last week was a productive one, and I for one can't ask for more than that.

Today I rode my refurbished Riese & Müller Birdy folding bicycle around my housing estate, which enabled me to check the brakes worked, and that the new chain was seated properly; as in it wasn't going to go spoing on me as it split into two parts while riding somewhere.  So all excited at the prospect of fun summer cycling.

Happy New Year: Reflecting on Year 2

My surprise Xmas present from my partner – a folding bicycle. It's very red.

Last year was a one where my achievements exceeded my original expectations.  This year not so much.

I began the year working on The Bureau, my fourth novel, but then switched over to re-writing Bad Dog, which l ended up doing three times.  This makes it very hard for me to actually calculate the mount of work I've done this year.  The three drafts were 87,999, 88,908 and 81,804 words each, which comes to a total of 258,711 words, but looking at the original draft and the end draft totals, the amount of actual words written comes to either about 10,000 words, or according to my calculations a total of about 31,478 words changed.

My fourth novel has, as a result of all the re-writes, rather suffered with me only managing to write just under 30,000? words, bringing its running total up to 47,788 words.  The bottom line is that re-writing doesn't give me the feeling of satisfaction I got from writing three first drafts last year.

I also wrote two short stories, which came to 2,806 words.

But blog posts are writing and this year I posted 62 pieces here, which amounted to 23,201 words, and 45 posts on my other blog, which amounted to 12,259 words.

And of course I wrote four magazine articles, and a piece for a games publisher, which came to a total of 11,166 words.

Grand total: It could be as high as 337,543 or as low as 110,910 words.

Using 210 days as a baseline the latter figure looks abysmal, but as my partner reminded me (ironically I may add) that using measures of one thing as performance indicators of another is not good practice.  So being mindful of said observation I will just say that his year has been one of consolidation.

Finally I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year and thank you again for reading, your support and comments are truly welcome.