I don’t know about you, but I love December. I’m a winter guy, and growing up in Southern California, December brought with it the dream of winter, if not the reality. Here in the Great Wet North, we get a taste of the real thing. The weather’s in the 50’s, drops to the 40’s at night, and I love it.
There’s also that Christmas magic in the air, of course, which was a big selling point. I loved it when I was a kid, of course. I had a period in my 20’s that lasted into my 30’s where I ignored it. What can I say? I was alone and surly. Now, with a family, I’m back in love with it. I guess that’s the secret. Christmas can be wonderful, but it’s gotta be shared.
Last night I hit 55K words on Terms of Enragement. That’s a little short of my personal NaNoWriMo goal of 60K words, but way more than I needed to win, so I’ll take my no-prize, order my shirt and be happy with it. The book’s not done by any stretch of the imagination. I still need to finish it, and I figure that’s going to be at least another 20 thousand. Fantasy novels typically weigh in at 80-100K, otherwise the readers don’t feel they’re getting their money’s worth. It’s important in this business to delight your customers, and I aim to do just that.
I got The Temporary Hero back from my editor the other day, so I’ll be digging into that once I get the first draft of ToE done. He had a lot of really positive things to say, which probably means he’s found several thousand things wrong with the draft. 😛 That’s OK. I pay him to find those things so my reader’s don’t. The good news is that it’s still on track, and I’m more excited than ever about the project.
OK, so a few thoughts on NaNoWriMo. As an exercise in increasing my productivity, I proclaim it a huge success. If I could maintain that level of effort all the time I could crank out six novels a year. That doesn’t mean they’d be good, but I’d have six novels ready to begin the editing and revising process. The problem is, it’s a bit much. I had to lean on my wife a lot. I didn’t do much in the way of chores around the house. I didn’t have a lot of time to spend with my sons. The only exercise I got was walking to the mailbox. I was pretty much typing away non-stop from breakfast to dinner. Of course, I lost several days to our trip to Los Angeles. I can’t believe they put this challenge during the same month as Thanksgiving. Anyhow, I always wanted to try it, and now I’ve done it. I don’t know if I’ll do it again.
I think that’s it for today. I’ll resume my regular posting schedule next week. Have a great weekend.