The Plot Bunny Farm

Mostly because I was supposed to get back to work — may have taken the weekend off, but it’s a work day now — and I didn’t really want to. Started to work through feedback on Siren Circle, though, and if all goes well, I should be formatting it tomorrow to get up for sale. But editing is a lot of “Hmmm, change this clause here, move these two paragraphs to a different chapter, and add a couple lines of explanation here.” So, not a lot of new words today. More than yesterday, though, when I literally did NO WORDS AT ALL.

Words written today: 2,450
Words written this month: 7,016
Words written 2017: 153,525
Average words/day 2017: 701
Books completed 2017: 2 (plus 1 novella)
Pages read today: 4 chapters of Castle Hangnail with daughter
Books read 2017: ?
Days until school starts: 21

(And yes, I just looked at Excel, saw my count was at 6,998 for the month and opened Scrivener back up just to cross the 7k mark for the month and stay above 1k/day for the month.)

By the way, if you want to see some gorgeous artwork, head to Twitter and check out the #visiblewomen hashtag.

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

Not as many today as yesterday, but still a respectable amount. Quite pleased to have crossed the 10,000-word mark on the new novel. (No, edits on Siren Circle are not complete yet. Soon!) Might spend some of my time this weekend making sure this beginning is solid — everyone introduced or re-introduced clearly, sufficient description, nothing contradicting earlier books. The cleaner this is now, the easier it makes the rest of it.

Words written today: 1,562
Words written this month: 6,784
Words written 2017: 153,293
Average words/day 2017: 710
Books completed 2017: 2 (plus 1 novella)
Pages read today: 1 chapter
Books read 2017: ?
Days until school starts: 24

I hope the start of August has been good to you!

Also, tonight’s dinner:

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

I was vastly amused this afternoon (possibly too much so) when my husband via chat and my son in the next room asked within minutes of each other what’s up with all these afternoon thunderstorms. (I told them it’s heat + humidity.)

Tried a new recipe tonight for dinner — high on veggie content: okonomiyaki. Son thought they were okay; daughter had a few bites and gave up. I liked them. Already warned everyone I will be making them again.

Tried submitting a story for a reprint anthology today. Got the acknowledgement e-mail and everything, but when I click the link to check the status (because I do that, yes), I get a note that it’s an invalid login. Okay, maybe I won’t try submitting short stories this year after all. The plan has always been to focus on long work, after all.

Oh, and I realized I’ve been making errors on the stat block, marking my reading as 0. I’ve been reading The Hobbit with our daughter as a bedtime story, and the past couple of days, we did that graphic novel as well, and I didn’t take credit for any of that.

Words written today: 513
Words written this month: 2,679
Words written 2017: 149,188
Average words/day 2017: 697
Books completed 2017: 2 (plus 1 novella)
Pages read today: 2 chapters
Books read 2017: ?
Days until school starts: 26

Not as good as yesterday, but since I had trouble sleeping last night, I’m okay with that. Still making forward progress, plus freelancing, plus family time. And tomorrow, I will cross that 150,000 line.

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

Not the best Monday in memory. It had some good points, and I really enjoyed spending time with my kids today — but I also literally screamed in frustration at the computer today. (And also told our son I might throw Word at them in D&D as a boss monster to defeat.)

Eventually, I managed 122 words for the day, which put me up to 16,110 for the month. Still a little shy of that 150,000 I wanted, but not by much.

Now, I shall try to sleep, hoping to awake refreshed and ready for a new day and a new month.

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

You’d think by now that I would know if I’m worried about a section of story when I give it to someone to read, I know I should have spent more time to get it right. Sure enough, one of my first readers ranted about the climax, which I thought was going to be a problem. So I spent a chunk of time today reworking and reworking and reworking the penultimate chapter.

There are other sections I still need to edit, and I still have to hear from my other primary reader, but I do feel better about the scene now. It was one of those things where I knew it didn’t work, but when I first wrote it, I didn’t know how to make it work. I still wasn’t sure today. I had to do things to my character I didn’t want to. It was hard. I hope my readers like it now.

Words written today: 1,574
Words written this month: 15,007
Words written 2017: 145,406
Average words/day 2017: 696
Books completed 2017: 2 (plus 1 novella)
Pages read today: 0
Books read 2017: ?
Days until school starts: 31

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

That was the first half of the day — the children’s section of the local library does a monthly session of reading to dogs as part of the summer program. I think it’s geared toward younger children, encouraging them to read aloud and improve fluency with an audience that won’t criticize them. However, our daughter loves dogs, so she eagerly signed up to read today.

She read the opening of Ursula Vernon’s Giant Trouble to a lovely black poodle. The poodle’s companion said that her reading was excellent — and also a mile a minute. No surprise there.

I meant to work on the outline for the next book today, but instead, I worked on creating a print version of the novella. I don’t have plans to put it into any sales channels, but I can see a few uses for having copies myself.

No new words today, alas!

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

It was pouring when I woke up. By the time I got up, it was mostly sunny with fluffy clouds. By dinner, dark and pouring rain with lots of thunder and lightning. Weather can’t make up its mind.

I split my time today between writing and working on birthday cake for my son. We had an interesting exchange about frosting (I asked him about cream cheese or buttercream, and he said, “Frosting for the cake?” I said yes, I wasn’t planning to put frosting on the fried rice), but now the cake is done and waiting for candles to be lit.

The writing went really well today. The climax and denouement and all clicked, and I got a good chunk of words. Still need to go back and edit and beef up some earlier stuff, but I’m on a roll.

Words written today: 2,450
Words written this month: 9,791
Words written 2017: 140,190
Average words/day 2017: 684
Books completed 2017: 1 (plus 1 novella)
Pages read today: 0
Books read 2017: ?
Days until school starts: 35

I stared at those numbers and said, “Hey, if I just write 209 more words this evening, I’ll have 10,000 for the month!” Which is true. However, cake is calling. And ice cream, too.

Words can wait until tomorrow (which is also when I will send my newsletter that should’ve gone out today).

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

I spent a good chunk of the day helping our daughter clean her room so she could host her friend for a sleepover tonight. Then our friends came over, and we gamed — D&D (3.5). I’m DM-ing a run through Castle Ravenloft. I’m not the best DM, but everyone seems to be having fun, which is my metric for success.

Eventually, after our friends left and the girls settled down to sleep, I wrote all of 35 words (3 new sentences). Also corrected one typo (changed “hiving” to “having”). Not much, but I still count the day good.

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

Didn’t take me long to start staying up late and doing these posts after midnight again, did it?

Words written today: 853
Words written this month: 6,838
Words written 2017: 137,237
Average words/day 2017: 683
Books completed 2017: 1 (plus 1 novella)
Pages read today: 0
Books read 2017: ?
Days until school starts: 39

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

When I got up this morning, the hot water pot (electric kettle, or whatever you want to call it) wouldn’t heat. I checked that the GFCI hadn’t tripped. I checked that other things in the same power strip were functioning. I took the pot off the stand and reseated it several times (which worked last time it went flaky). Nothing helped.

I had to resort to heating water for tea in the microwave this morning. Shocking, I know. I replaced the water pot this afternoon. I was good, though — I didn’t buy the really fancy one with all the different temperature settings!

NOT the one I bought

Words written today: 620
Words written this month: 5,090
Words written 2017: 135,489
Average words/day 2017: 681
Books completed 2017: 1 (plus 1 novella)
Pages read today: 0
Books read 2017: Still working on the proper tally

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.