February 21, 2009
I’ve been moving full steam ahead on the new novel, which I’m loving. Wish I could tell you about it, but I’m superstitious; no revelations till publication. Though I took last weekend off for a trip to Erie, I’ve been hitting it hard again all week. In fact, I’m six days into a new streak. The big question is, will I make the deadline and have this novel done in time for the workshop I’ll be attending in May? The numbers make me worry: I’m 36,000 words into this novel, shooting for 100,000. At a rate of 1,000 words a day (my Daily Grand), I’ll need 64 more writing days to finish. (That’s 64,000 more words, 1,000 words per day.) The deadline for submitting the complete manuscript for the workshop is April 15. That gives me 53 days to finish…not exactly 64. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Most days, I get a few hundred words over the Daily Grand…200 or 300, typically. If I get 200 more words a day, for a total of 1200 words a day…times 53 days…that makes 63,600 words! So I could conceivably make it if I ramp up my effort.
But it will be close, my friends. I’ve already started psyching myself up and pushing myself to write faster (and smarter!)…but who knows what road blocks could hit between now and April 15? The thing is, all I can do is try. I’ll keep hitting it hard, doing my absolute best, and hopefully everything will work out.
Such are the calculations and strategies of a fiction writer’s life. This fiction writer’s life, anyway. But don’t get me wrong: I like having a deadline. I seem to work best when I have a deadline…something to strive for. It keeps me from getting bogged down and dragging out a project forever. Since I’m still working on spec, without deadlines from publishers via contracts, I have to impose them on myself by turning my novels into assignments for workshops. It makes a huge difference, believe me. Maybe it’s my inner journalist reacting; after all, I majored in journalism in college and worked in TV news. Deadlines were my bread and butter for a long time…and still are in my day job as a technical writer. Either way, it’s what works best for me, and I’m glad of it. But the suspense is driving me mad. Will I make the workshop deadline with this novel? Or will I have to workshop a different novel, one I’ve already finished? I hope I get to use the new one, because I love it so much. On the other hand, I could use some help marketing my other novels. (And this is a marketing workshop, after all!) Hopefully, I’ll get plenty of help with the old ones and the new one. That would be the ideal situation.
In the meantime, I’m doing my best, and trying to keep the other balls in the air at the same time. For example, I’ve been keeping up this blog on a daily basis, and I’m very happy with it. I’m really grateful to all of you for stopping by and giving it a read; we’ve already broken another record this month, but I’ll wait till the end of the month to give you the latest totals. You might be glad to know I’ve fixed the RSS feed subscription controls on the page, too. I just took care of it today, so you ought to be able to subscribe to the RSS at will. Let me know if you have a problem.
Now, as I’ve been doing with my last batch of posts, I’ll leave you with a photo from my travel archives. This time, it’s a photo of me in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado in 1987. That year, after graduating from college, my pal Don Bertschman and I drove across the country in my 1974 Dodge Dart, looking for America. We were both Jack Kerouac fanatics and trying to relive Jack and Neal Cassady’s cross-country trips from the great novel On the Road. It was a heck of an adventure, and I’ll tell you more about it in days to come. I’m also planning to post more photos from the trip. Without further ado, here’s me in the Rockies. I’m the tiny figure on the hill in the middle of the picture; get out your magnifying glass. This is one of my favorite photos of all time. See you tomorrow!
Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, 1987
