Day One: Novel Challenge

Really a strange start to this new novel challenge.

I ended up getting to the WMG offices around 2:30 p.m., then headed out for errands, first going to our south store, then to a bank, then back to WMG offices, then to a second bank and the post office before heading to walk with two other writers.

Got done with the walk around 5 p.m., headed to the grocery store for some lunch and to pick up what I needed for dinner, then back to WMG Publishing to work on workshop stuff.

Home by 7 p.m., so 3.5 hours of work, 1 hour of exercise.

Cooked dinner, then did my e-mail and then took a nap.

So got in here around 11 p.m. which I figured was a good start. And it would have been if I hadn’t gotten sidetracked on looking up some running gear I’m going to need for the exercise.

Then I went to watch some television and didn’t get back in here until around 2 a.m.

Total television time for the day 2.5 hours (counting the time I watched while eating dinner).

Still not started.

Since Star Fall has the two characters from Dust and Kisses in Smith’s Monthly #1, I grabbed a copy of that to put the characters back into my head. One hour later, I managed to stop reading and turn to the computer.

So didn’t start anything until 3 a.m. Now that’s silly.

I sat down and just started typing, using the characters. No idea at all to the plot, just that I need an extreme sports event in it.

By 3:45 a.m. I had 1,200 words.

Short break and by 4:30 a.m. I had managed another 1,100 words.

Short break and another 800 new words by 5:10 a.m.

Just over 2 hours of writing, less than I spent watching television. Sigh.

So I got 3,100 new words. Hit the first day even with a stupid start and some bad discipline. (Today was clear evidence of the value of Speed. Fastest I have started a novel in a long time.)

Day 1… 3,000… Actual words… 3,100.  Total so far… 3,100 words

Day 2… 4,000… Total word count to be over… 7,000
Day 3… 5,000… Total word count to be over… 12,000
Day 4… 6,000… Total word count to be over… 18,000
Day 5… 7,000… Total word count to be over… 25,000
Day 6… 8,000… Total word count to be over… 33,000
Day 7… 9,000… Total word count to be over… 42,000 (or end of book)

I also got my 10,000 plus steps done just fine as well on Day One.

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September Online Workshops