Word Count Wednesday

It’s been a very long day. I got up before dawn and started working on some non-book material. I’m writing up information about a project Bob Vardeman and I discussed with a lot of authors at the World Fantasy Convention. I tacked 1,500 words on to the basic document before breakfast. It’s going to be a lot of fun and, with any luck, will kick off in January.

From there I wrote two and a third chapters on the novel. The first came in the morning, the second in the afternoon. The third of a chapter I wrote during a Second Life “Write in.” A half-dozen folks came into one spot and worked on stories for an hour or so. It was cool to see other authors there working away, making occasional comments. So much of this work is done alone, it’s cool to have others hunkered down around you scribbling away. (Folks at Office Hours asked if we’d have more events like that, and we will.)

At The Queen’s Command is tooling along very nicely. I’m settled in with the characters and have them grinding rough edges off on each other. I’m also at the point where I’m injecting a bit more magick and a bit more of the sinister stuff. It’s always fascinating to have an idea pop into my head, then quickly work out details on how I will weave it in to the next several chapters. A mini-mystery shows up here, a sudden battle there, always working in the general direction I intend, but with new and novel knots that kink the rest of the story up.

After all that we had Office Hours in Second Life. We had a nice crowd this evening, including Bob Vardeman. We discussed the recent World Fantasy Convention, digital publishing and intellectual property rights; as well as answering some great questions from the audience. What’s fun is that questions tend to run in channels. One question will trigger another and we get to cover a lot of territory. Tonight questions touched on both some basic writing techniques and then the finer points of what violates copyright and what doesn’t.

I’m sure we’ll hit more on those subjects next week.

So, a lot of words got put down today, which made it a very good day. It’s also an odd one when compared to a normal day for many people. Aside from getting the mail, I didn’t step out of doors. My hands are hurting from so much typing, but Motrin will fix that. The fact that I’ve stopped in the middle of a chapter will get me jumpstarted tomorrow, which is good since I’ll go to DracoVista Studios to record Cover to Cover tomorrow afternoon.

Word Count for November: Hard: 10930 Soft: 3063

Looking forward to tomorrow. I don’t think I have to kill any characters.

I just have to make a few wish they were dead.