9 months.

101,030 words.

32 chapters.

Second Draft of Quartz: DONE

I’m exhausted (due partially to unrelated reasons).

This draft has to pass the Intelligibility Test, currently being administered by David. Once he’s checked off on this being Not Stupid and Embarrassing, then perhaps I’ll let other people see it.

Quartz type-in:

15 chapters.

47,149 words.

98,744 words total.

It’s coming along. *chug chug*

Well. D. got the boys’ bedroom mudded, sanded, primed and painted a rather vibrant green. All the kids are still in the playroom for tonight, though, because we want the fumes to dissipate before moving the boys in. Still need to get dressers in, unbunk the beds, get Sir I’s mattress out of the back hall, take down the crib…

Oh, wait. That’s not the progress you wanted to hear about, did you?

Ahem, Quartz. So.

On the Quartz front, I’m eight chapters and 23, 664 words into the type-in. Total wordcount of the novel stands at 91, 325. I have a lot of new material to shoehorn in there, though. Here’s hoping the novel won’t balloon past 120K.

How’re your writing projects going?

69 scenes.

372 pages.

46K new words.

1 wrung-out writer.

The Manuscript Cut and Write-in (aka Lesson 17, for all you fellow HTRYN sojourners) for Quartz is done.

*insert small triumphant squeak because I’m too tired to do anything more*

I finally finally(!!) finished scene 60, the Scene From Verbiage River. Three more scenes to go. So… close… to… finish line.

I have my last three FO cards fanned out in front of me. They look so small, and few, and doable.

Unfortunately, they are all red and they brightly tell me what to do but not how to do it. The scene descriptions are along the lines of “Break into Castle of Doom (dum dum dum!), steal Device of Great Power (da da da!), rescue Princess (*trumpets blare*) and escape intact”.

And, er, how exactly is Hero supposed to do all this with just a pocket knife and a piece of twine, again?

That’s what I have to figure out.

How’s your writing going?

Got 56 out of 63 scenes, and a healthy chunk out of scene 57 (which promises to be long long long).

I need to pace myself better. On Thursday I got through 2 new scenes in a couple of intense writing sessions. I was so burnt out from that, I spent all of Friday reading (books 2 and 3 of the Codex Alera, thankyouverymuch). Hemmed and hawed and dillydallied Saturday before getting in another two scenes. Started tonight’s writing session late because I’m so up and down and all around in terms of mood. Bad diet? Not enough exercise? Too much story intensity?

School starts tomorrow. The kids are excited. I spent some time today organizing our school shelves. Barring a few miscellany, we’re all set to go!

40 out of 64 scenes. Yeah, I guess all my scenes-smushing was offset by extra scenes or something. Still, almost two-thirds of the way there is nothing to be sneezed at!

The last 4 or 5 scenes have been hard. It’s not that they’re total rewrites (I’ve been doing that since scene 2 ); it’s that they’re replacing passages that I particularly like. Those included spot-on description, sparkling dialog and one plot twist I really enjoyed. I’m having a hard time letting those go, even though they don’t fit my current story arc.

How’s your progress?

Our Internet was down all day yesterday so I didn’t get a chance to post my (lack of) progress. It was relaxing to be freed from the distractions of email, feed reader and random web surfing, though I did miss Pandora and this online timer while revising last evening. Oh yeah, it was also weird not being able to pop on to Google for a quick research-related search, but I managed to get a lot of work done, regardless. It wasn’t as much of a hindrance as I made it out to be.

So. Quartz progress. I’ve done 33 out of 63 scenes, putting me over the halfway mark in terms of scene count. I also squished two scenes together, dropping my total scenes by one (hey, that’s got to count as me having done an extra scene, right??).

David was gone on a business trip all week so I was single parenting it. I did really well with my revision for the first part of his trip,  then fell off the bandwagon for the latter half. Something about being utterly physically and emotionally exhausted after putting the kids to bed and wanting to stare zombie-like at the computer screen and eat chips and dip….

So. But! David’s back and taken the kids to the park this morning so I can (eat breakfast and) getting cracking on scene 24!

How are your writing projects going?

29 out of 64 scenes.

I wanted to hit 30 today, but revising during the kids’ Quiet Time didn’t happen (the Baron was really fussy) and I got a late start this evening (I just sat and stared zombie-like at my screen for an hour, then stuffed my face with tortilla chips and chili con queso). Ah well, I have a green card for my next scene; the last one before a whole string of from-scratch scenes.

I also got to play with one my favorite scenes in the book–a scene I moved up in the timeline–and I really like where it is now. It includes this delightful interlude over a platter of stuffed mushrooms.

How are your writing/revising projects going?