July 19th & 20th

July 19.

I wrote close to nothing, choosing to write a blog post during my lunch hour, which the judges have decreed, does not count as word writing.

Guys, this is really hard.  I can't even say why.  Maybe it's the project I'm working on, maybe it's having taken a couple of months off, maybe it's the 100 degree weather outside (and in my pants). but I just can't motivate myself to REALLY buckle down and write.

I dunno.  July is, crazily, nearly done, and it looks like I won't even have ten thousand words accomplished this month.  Which, again, is better than five thousand or no thousand, but it just doesn't feel like it did in February and March, where my novellas practically wrote themselves, and I had the strength to throw in short stories between them.  It may be that "A Mark on the Sky" and "10,000 Coffins" were better stories than "Taste the Blood" and "Balms & Sears," both of which are stalling on me.

I dunno, a real writer would just finish both of them and do better next time.*

I heard my nephew screaming outside today, and went out to see what was the matter with him.  He had fallen down and his brother said there was something wrong with his arm.  Turns out the child had broken his collarbone.  That was pretty awful.  He's a good kid; should've happened to me instead.

Just think how much writing I'd get done then.

Words Today: 192
Total Words: 6523

July 20th.

Okay, we're hitting the last third of the month now.  I do hate counting words, so the last few "writing" sessions have all been on computer. 

Today, I went to the library again, and made myself sit and try to work out the logic/time flaw I found in "Mark on the Sky."  It MAY have been as easy as just having one conversation happen on Thursday and the other conversation happen on Friday.  I imagine I'll have to do one more revision, once it's all done, but for now, I think that solves most of the problem.

Due to that, I did get quite a few words in today.  Happy about that.

All day today I was thinking about my dad's cabin in the woods, and how I always wanted to go there, by myself, and write and edit audiobooks and maybe podcast.  At this moment, I'm about 60% determined that I will do that tomorrow afternoon: just drive down, spend the night, and come back at some point on Saturday.

I think, if I were a real, dedicated writer (what I keep hitting on this whole damned post), I would do that.  It won't cost much more than a half tank of gas, and I'd probably also get a hundred pages of reading done.

Alright, I'm now 65% sure I'll go.

Words Today: 520
Total Words: 7043

*I was editing the interview I did with Abigail Hilton tonight (instead of writing) and I got to the part where she mentions, pretty casually, that she wrote a 80-90 thousand word novel in three weeks recently.  And I seem unlikely to reach a tenth of that.  It makes me pretty disgusted with myself. 
I had a conversation once with someone about the future, where he was talking about how much money there was to be made selling on eBay, and that one day he would quit his job and just do that, instead of just selling things in his spare time.  I was impressed.  "How many items do you have on eBay right now?" I asked, thinking the number would blow me away. 
And it did: he had zero items up for sale at that time.  He just never got around to it, he told me.
Who's the real monster here, I have to ask myself.