Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Writing in Public

Off the Ground and Flying

November 11, 2017 /

The Challenge Has Started…

A fun first day today. I was clearly ready to get going.

And interestingly enough, so was WMG Publishing.

So on the very first day of the challenger I had a novel published. One of the ones I wrote back in July, but now it is out.

You can find the book at

https://www.wmgpublishinginc.com/project/death-takes-a-diamond/

It just published today so it might be a little slow getting out to all sites. But that has the links there that are available.

1 down, 66 to go.

Short Story Challenge…

Here is how my day went…

Rolled out around 1 p.m. and by 2:30 p.m. I was at the south stores. (North by Northwest Books and Pop Culture Collectables)  I worked with the two managers there for a while, then headed to the WMG offices behind our north store.

I worked with Allyson there on a number of projects, then around 5 p.m. I headed to the post office and then into the valley to do some picking.

I spent a couple hours picking and found some fun stuff, including four antique carpet balls. Stunned me when I found them, let me tell you. I’ve been looking for carpet balls for decades and almost never see them. Now I have four. Cost me $12.00.

I made it home by 8:30 p.m. and cooked dinner for me and Kris. I made it into this office to do email and some reading by 10. Then I took a quick nap and got started on the first story in the challenge by midnight. Right on time.

I spent a few minutes looking for a title, finally combining two half titles. “Under the Skin…” came out of an old sf digest and “…of Death” came out of a mystery digest a decade later. I combined the two half titles into “Under the Skin of Death” and typed it into my word doc template.

I first thought it would be a Mary Jo Assassin story, but when I typed the first line about cats, I knew it was a Cold Poker Gang story. (My detectives have three cats.)

I did 700 words in an hour, then went with Kris to go watch some television.

Back in my office here at 2:15 a.m.

I did 1,100 words by 3:15 a.m., took a short break.

Another 1,200 words by 4:15 a.m., another short break.

Finished it by 5:15 a.m.

Story One… Under the Skin of Death: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery Story.  4,400 words. Time spent writing it 4 hours with breaks.

Time spent working and picking and driving… 6.5 hours. The rest was sleeping, cooking, napping, television, and so on.

About right.

So off the ground and flying. Focused on the short stories now to the end of the month. Then in December I can get to some novels.

Thanks, everyone for all the good wishes on getting this started. And tomorrow I add in the 10,000 steps, although today I managed around 7,000 and did nothing special.

Onward.

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