As of Today

Christmas, an impending move, and the demands of the day job have all been impeding progress on the novel of late, but all that seems to have ended yesterday. I made myself a Christmas present of some time at work on Chapter 21 and found it going in a direction I had not anticipated. I don't know whether what I wrote was any good or not at this point, but at least it was coherent. Sometimes that's about all you can ask for.

What I was working on was a letter from the deceased that I had no idea he had written until Drayton opened the file it was in. Part of the fun was that I got to write in a voice different from Drayton's and could work in different rhythms and with different word choices. My concern in all this is that, since the letter gives a precis of Briarbrook's biography, that I might descend into mawkishness or sentimentality. Neither of those are typical ailments for me artistically, so I'd hate to start up at this late date. The prose, however, is spare and lean, and that helps keep the melodrama under wraps.

All I can do now is to write it and come back at some later date to see whether I want to burn those pages or not. That's the process.

The Forest

I am getting to the point where the previous version won't be much help at all. As I'm working the entire ending of the book is changing and morphing, perhaps leading me to an entirely different conclusion than what I had before. It's a strange thing to be writing a mystery without being sure of what the denouement is, but that is exactly the fix I find myself in.

To some extent, it is a blessing. It is putting me more in Drayton's shoes than ever before, and I am getting the distinct sense of discovering the book rather than writing it. And that's a good thing.

There's so much to think through. Where will Drayton go next? Why will he go there and what will happen? I haven't the vaguest frickin' idea.

This ought to be fun.

A New Chapter

I started work on Chapter 21 a few of days ago and it is coming along. I struggled along at first, rewriting a section of what had been Chapter 19 in the previous version. I'm still sawing away at that section.

I made some changes yesterday that seemed to help. All I can do is blunder forward.

The Story of Chapter 20

Okay, so I've been rewriting and writing Chapter 20, and I pulled it up on Google Docs on Wednesday with an eye toward finishing it up. Anyway, I pull it up and scroll down to the last line line and think to myself, "What comes next? What comes next?" And then I looked at that line again and realized that it was finished.

Except that it isn't. It's still just a draft. It's a decent draft, but it needs polishing. It is also a tiny thing, barely more than a thousand words, and I suspect that the polishing will mostly involve spinning out some of the notions already extant in it at greater lengths. (This is something that is often true of my initial drafts. Most writers spend their time cutting. I end up expanding.)

The problem that I find myself faced with now is one of deciding whether to start this revision right away or perhaps soldiering on through the rest of the new ending first and going back to revise the whole section once that's done. I'm not sure. Both approaches have their plusses, and I have to assess which method will serve the book better. My guess would be that pressing on is the most likely winner, but I never know until I find myself at work on something.

Part of the fun is in the surprises.

I'd Rather Be a Percolator Than a Drip

Chapter 19 is done. It took a little over a month. It came out a decent size and accomplished what I wanted to accomplish.

Now, on to Chapter 20, which is such a substantial rewrite of a portion of the previous draft that it will be like starting from scratch. I doubt I'll have time to start it until Monday, which gives me the weekend to ponder it and let it percolate.

My only regret in all of this is that I have to write on the sly, in moments both stolen and cribbed. It would be nice to be able to concentrate on it and to enjoy each small victory to its fullest. Writing well is difficult. This has become a truism among its practitioners. However, the counterbalance to that, the thing that encourages you to pull yourself off the mat after each time you've been decked, is the sublime satisfaction that comes from getting any part of it--a sentence, a phrase, a word--absolutely right.

I don't get much chance to savor the victories right now. Each one comes amidst a blizzard of other obligations and priorities. The satisfaction is still there, but it is truncated and worried. There's always one eye turned toward the next step, the next challenge.

And the only way to deal with that is to, from time-to-time, stop and ponder and let it percolate.

Westward Leading Still Proceeding

Actually, I'm not headed westward at all. No, we're all headed east, spinning like a screwball across the strike zone of space. Or maybe not.

The point is that I am still making progress on Chapter 19. Patches of it come blurting out every few days, and I spend the days in between fixing that which gets blurted out. In other words, I'm rewriting as I go along.

It seems to me (and I haven't made too close a study of this) that I'm finishing chapters at about one per month. Given that trajectory, I should have a draft ready by Groundhogs Day, although such a deadline is not mandatory. The closest thing I have to a deadline is April, when the ten finalists for the contest sponsored by the Creative Writing Department at the university at which I work will be announced. Part of that step would be to submit a complete manuscript, which would mean having it done by then. Assuming that mine was one of the final ten.

In the meantime, all I can do is to continuing spinning eastward, always chasing the next morning.

You Gotta Have Faith

The rewrite of Chapter 19 has been proceeding apace. This is not one that has gone ahead at a gallop, but instead vacillates between a cantor and a crawl. That's all well-and-fine, and just part of the game.

The writing itself, I think, is going well. There is a kind of music to the words and a literary quality as well. The endless refining--Google Docs has tracked 303 changes--are making it, slowly but surely, better.

A large portion of the chapter takes place in a Catholic cathedral during a funeral. The problem that this has raised is that I want it to be authentic, but only remember so much off the top of my head. Research on the Internet has provided some info, but not everything, so I'm left to guess most of the time.

So now I'm put in the position of either doing direct research by attending a funeral or two somewhere in the Atlanta archdiocese, which seems a little creepy, or contacting a priest or two that I knew back in a former life. The second option might seem like the better one on its face, but that would involve explaining why I've lapsed and getting into a whole going-back-to-church-it's-never-gonna-happen-my-friend kind of thing.

Damn research.

The First Step

I came up with the first sentence to Chapter 19 12 minutes ago. I've been so productive that I am now up to six sentences. I may have to lie down soon.

The great thing to me is that this first paragraph is a clue to the reader about the solution, but is not overt in any way, shape, or form. It also links it to the end of the previous chapter and is just overall a pretty keen piece of work. I'll probably end up deleting it at some point.

Such is the life of a writer.

But First--

Well, not only did I not getting any new sentences written yesterday, I actually deleted the one I had. It's time for some fresh thinking and a fresh start.

The first sentence of any piece of writing is important, whether it's the first sentence in a chapter, a story, an essay, or a confession. You want to entice the reader and lure them deeper into the chapter, story, essay, or confession until they reach the point of no return. (For great writers, that point is usually right up front. For the rest of us, it varies, with a large number never establishing such a point anywhere at any time.)

So that's my current assignment: Come up with the right opening sentence. Who knows? Maybe I'll come up with one or two more. Just another hundred or two after that, I'll move on to Chapter 20. I'll shoot up a flare when I get to it.

Occam's Razor™

I got stuck on Chapter 19 for a number of days. I wasn't even writing any of it. I had down the grand sum of one sentence. Thirteen whole words. It was dead in the water, and I wasn't sure why.

I was being stopped by a feeling, a sense that I was about to make a wrong turn down a dark and dangerous street. I switched over to writing a non-Drayton short story to pass the time. Was this the end of zombie Shakespeare? Not quite.

In a time-tested tradition, this morning I came up with the answer to my problem while showering. It was, of course, the simplest answer possible.

You know, if Roger of Ockham had trademarked Occam's Razor™, he'd be a rich man today.

One Step Closer

I finished Chapter 18 around lunchtime today and think it came out fairly well. This was a chapter that seemed to write itself, several times going in directions that I hadn't it considered going in. In fact, it actually ended differently than I had expected and put forward an important clue without coming across like an installment of Murder She Wrote.

Most surprisingly for me, it came out in a way that is going to mean that I can salvage great chunks of the next couple of chapters, at least in terms of the action and progress of the plot. The words you never know about until you're actually faced with the task of retyping them.

This is all encouraging, and while I doubt that I will be able to finish this draft by Halloween, I think there's some chance that I'll have it finished by some time in November. I doubt that it will be "done" done by then, but it should be good enough to shop around. Of course, it will never be completely done until some publisher forces me to stop with the revisions just so that they can get it to press.

Redirect

I started work on Chapter 18 a few days ago and worked like a galley slave to come up with 200 words that I wasn't satisfied with. Late yesterday, I had to admit to myself that the chapter wasn't working and that I needed to reevaluate.

I realized that the scene I was writing was completely unnecessary and just needed to be jettisoned. So, late yesterday afternoon, I started fresh with a scene I'd never had a version of before and watched in astonishment as about 250 words poured out with seeming ease.

There are sometimes when you fight with the writing, when it is terribly hard and discouraging, but you keep on and persevere because something in you knows that what you're working on is the right thing. Sometimes not so much. Sometimes the words just seem to fall out of you, like sugar out of a punctured bag. Those are the good days. And it's kind of like golf, where you can play miserably except for one good shot and that one good shot hooks you and encourages you to try it again.

Now, we'll see how today goes.

Chapter 17 Done

Okay, Chapter 17, another really short one, is done, and I think it's a distinct improvement over its antecedent. The funny thing is that it turned out to be an easier job of rewriting than Chapter 16, which started out in better shape but was torture to revise. You never know. You just never know.

The other thing that's come up is that the entire ending is changing shape on me as I revise it. New scenes, new approaches, new settings. It's exciting and disconcerting all at the same time. What I'm really doing is removing all the vestiges of the original TV movie version of it. It's still comic in spirit, but not a comedy anymore.

Rounding Up

The chapter I am currently at work on what was originally the last half of Chapter 16. Chapter 16 1/2, really. As a practical matter, I decided to round it up to Chapter 17. Easier for the bookkeeping aspect of things.

After I got a cool three sentences down yesterday, I started to rethink the entire scene. It just wasn't convincing. It wasn't working. Drayton would have had to have been nearly psychic for the action to unfold as I had it. The set up is that he realizes that Federal agents are staking out his apartment, so he engages in a bit of misdirection as a way of avoiding them.

I turned over several possibilities in my mind before stumbling on the simplest: His pal Lt. Sidwell can tip him off via a phone call. Occam's razor, I think they call it.

And now the rewriting of the rewriting begins.

Plus ça Change

Last night, I decided to look over the final chapter even though I am still some way from reaching it for revision. I'm glad I did.

I think it wasn't much of an ending, one more suited to a broad comedy than to the book it has become. I've got a few weeks to turn it over before I need to really deal with it, which is a plus, but the revision will ultimately be substantial enough that I think I might have to put that rewrite on hold for a while even then.

In the meantime, I have four chapter to rewrite, one of which (I think Chapter 17, which I am starting work on today) will include an entire scene that never existed before. That's a lot of work and all the while I'll be thinking about the damn ending.

It would be so much easier to do a crap job and probably more profitable, too. Unfortunately, I am stuck with the desire to write something worth writing and, with any luck, worth reading.

But that's the way it goes.

Chapter 16 Update

Well, so far, I spent pretty much this entire month rewriting the part of the original Chapter 16 that I had thought was decent. Now I'm getting to the part that I thought was crap. Odds are that that will turn out to be somewhat easier.

One of the things I've noticed is that I want to put a chapter break between these two sections. That will make Chapter 16 a short one, but there is no dishonor in writing a short chapter. The only dishonor is in writing a bad one.

I'd really like to put Drayton to bed by the end of October so that it doesn't make it to a fourth National Novel Writing Month, but I don't know that I'll make it. It does give me a loose goal to shoot for, though, and anything I can do to keep myself focused is worth it.

Just to Clarify

On my other blog, Next in the Series: The Blog, I mentioned that I had started work on a second novel, Such Is Life. This does not mean that I am putting Drayton aside even temporarily. Drayton is my first writing priority, and will be until this draft is done.

I'm just getting the ball rolling on Such Is Life so that I can really have some momentum going on it when I done with Drayton. I'm also going to be revising some short stories in my copious free time.

And let's not forget these fascinating blog posts. It's a full life.

The Process

The following are the revisions I talked about yesterday, from Revision 3 (which was when I actually started to write something) to 86:


It ain't easy. Just worth it.

You Don't Call, You Don't Write

Okay. I know I haven't added much to this blog since reviving it, but there is a simple reason for that: I haven't made much progress.

Except, of course, that I have. It's just that the writer often makes progress in the way that a stream makes progress on a rock or valley. You wear away at it bit-by-bit, always looking to improve it, always looking to strengthen it.

And that's what's been going on with the novel. I've been working on Chapter Sixteen and have, over the course of the last week or so, completed three paragraphs. Now, that accumulation involves a lot of backing up and reworking and rethinking and rewriting. Google documents has cataloged some 86 revisions so far, ranging from additions of text to complete reworkings of words, phrases, and sentences.

There have been more than a few deletions, as well.

And this is all on the part of Chapter 16 I thought was in good shape. It doesn't always come easily.

Like a Phoenix, Rising from the Ashes--Yech!

In a lame attempt to conform to the social strictures currently expected of those of us in the writing game, I am reviving this blog. I am doing so in lieu of registering the domain name and building a real website. The time is not quite right for that. Yet.

I am getting there, though.

Since last I posted on the Next in the Series blog about the novel, I have completed the rewrite of Chapter 14. It is slightly shorter than it had been and much more to the point. I've also introduced another character who will recur in subsequent Drayton adventures, an attorney named John Dingle. (He is a principal in the law firm of Dingle & Berry.)

It was hard work, but the chapter came out much improved.

I then marked up a copy of Chapter 15 and was delighted to find that it was actually already in decent shape and only required minor touches. Those have been completed.

I started reading Chapter 16, and was beginning to think that I would be basically off the hook for Chapters 17 through 20, when the quality sloped off sharply. As I recall, the point at which the quality went directly into the sewage system was right about at the time that I decided to enter that contest. I worked more quickly than I usually do, and it showed. Everything after about halfway through Chapter 16 can only be considered rough drafts. Very rough drafts.

And now, thanks to information that came out in Chapters 13 and 14, I have to write a whole new chapter anyway. It just never ends with these novels.

Change of Venue

From now on, all new posts having to do with the development of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy will appear on my main blog, Next in the Series: The Blog. There are already a couple of new posts, if you were so inclined.

Shading

As winter has crossfaded into spring, a mural has taken shape on a retaining wall that holds up one corner of the track outside the athletic center at the university I'm employed by. I walk by it in the morning and evening five days-a-week, and I've watched it take shape over the course of the last several months. At first, it looked horrible and amateurish, closer to graffiti than art. However, over time, each portion has been slowly filled in and out, and the aesthetic value of the piece has increased with every change.

This is the metaphor I've hit upon for my method of working. I start out with what I call "an outline in draft form." The first version is usually weak, but I get it out. I get out what happens and who is involved. I get down the lines of it, the equivalent of an artist's rough sketch, and then go back, from the top, and fill it in and out. And that's where the interesting stuff happens.

There were those who thought, when I decided to enter the contest at gather.com, that I was making a huge mistake, but I still disagree. I needed that deadline to get me to stop diddling around with individual words and phrases and start roughing out the last quarter of the book. And I did that. Now, I can go back over each chapter that needs revision and redo it the right way, having taken some time away to give me some perspective as a whole. It brought me back to the method of working that suits me best. And I have a completed draft to shop while I'm revising.

On another topic, I worked on it on Saturday as well. The new, improved chapter 11 is coming along nicely.

How I Write

I've continued to push on, making almost no use of the previous version. I've less than 600 words so far, but I think they're good ones. They're certainly better than the ones that preceded them.

What I've been able to put together is this: The method of composition that works best for me is to blat out a draft, put it aside for awhile, and then revise from scratch. I got lucky with a couple of chapters in the first half of Drayton, and only had to do some minor polishing on the first drafts, but those proved to be the exceptions. As I look back over the 33 years I've been writing seriously, that's always been the way. At least it has for the stuff that worked the best.

I think this method allows me to deal with all the mundane stuff--what happens next and where, who's there, what do they look and sound like--so that I don't have to later. On the second draft, I can concentrate on how the words sound coming off the page and provide the depth and shading that most likely were missing from the original version.

This is a method that is not well-suited to the digital age, but that's no matter. And, at the end of the day, I have to do things in a manner that makes sense to me and not to any other.

At 47, after 33 years, I'm still learning about how I do this. Maybe that's a clue as to why I can't ever give writing up.

He's Baaaack!

Yesterday's work on Chapter 11 went well. I didn't get a lot of wordage--only about three paragraphs from yesterday morning until after 10 last night--but the quality was there. The voice of Drayton is back. After a long, lonely period, he's speaking to me again.

He went on vacation while I was writing the first draft, but is apparetly back, tanned and rested. Let me give you idea of the difference.

In the draft of Chapter 11, the first paragraph was :

I awoke the next morning to the music of someone pounding his fist on the door to my apartment. I had fallen asleep the night before in my recliner as I watched TV. The channel that had been playing “Green Acres” when I left consciousness was now showing an infomercial for exercise equipment. Times change.

That's all right, but it now reads:

I awoke the next morning to the music of someone pounding on the door of my apartment. I was asleep in the recliner in the living room when the sound stunned me awake. The TV was on. The channel that had been showing Green Acres seemingly moments before was now showing a bright, bubbly, and cheerless infomercial for a no-money-down real estate scam. A tanned man in a polo shirt and a pale woman in a sundress shilled themselves smugly in blistering seaside sunlight, and I wondered when Professor Marvel was going to appear with the patent medicine.

That's Drayton.

Revised Expectations

I've started just this morning revising the chapters of the book that didn't get a thorough going over before. I'm starting with Chapter 11 and pushing on to the end.

This is the part of the writing process in which word processing programs are supposed to be the greatest help, but I find them to be the greatest hindrance. So I am actually retyping the entire chapter, sentence-by-sentence, and reworking it as thoroughly as I can.

In other news, I'm up to my third query of an agent. How many am I willing to query before I stop sending it out? I'm not sure, but it's a lot. But lets all hope that number three turns out to be the smart one.

The Latest

I submitted an email query to an agent on Thursday and got back a rejection within an hour-and-a-half. (He promised fast service, and that's what I got.) That really didn't bother me. It was something of a practice run anyway, although I would have gladly signed a contract had one been offered.

Yesterday, I mailed a query with sample pages to another agent. I should hear back within the month.

More updates, as warranted, will be posted here, your one-stop shop for Drayton news.

The Contest Is Over--For Me at Least

Michael Drayton, Detective Guy did not make the cut in the contest over at Gather.com. Twenty semi-finalists were chosen yesterday, leaving Drayton, I'm sure, at position 21 or maybe 27. So close and yet so far. I got the impression that all the semi-finalists are genre-friendly potboilers, something which Drayton certainly is not, and since the imprint that all this is directed toward, Touchstone/Fireside, specializes in genre-friendly potboilers, that is all well and good.

Be of good cheer, though. All is not lost. I have already sent a query to an agent. At the very least, this contest gave me a solid deadline to shoot for, and I made it with a reasonable draft left behind for my troubles. The current version isn't perfect--the last half needs a thorough rewrite--but the story is in place with enough good writing along the way to show that I can write somewhat. And whether this first agent bites or whether it takes 100 queries to find somebody, I'll keep on. It's really that good.

The First Round

Yesterday was the last day for the first chapter of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy to be open for comment and rating at the First Chapters contest at Gather.com, so now the waiting game really begins. I have no idea what my rating is or what comments were made. I don't really care. I never expected to win the popularity contest--I'd have to be a radically different kind of person to do that.

And while some people may think that reading the comments could be helpful, I really, truly doubt that. The thing about reading the comments is that they are irrelevant to what I do. The good, the bad, the indifferent, it makes no difference. Those comments are a discussion among readers--just as any reviews would be--and are none of my business.

My job is to write the thing as best I know how, which is what I did. I'm happy with it. Chapter One of Drayton accomplishes exactly what I wanted it to in the manner in which I wanted to do it. The prose is first-rate, and the exposition is laid out with a minimum of pain. Seeds are planted that won't bear fruit for many chapters to come. The folks who are reading it are reading one chapter out of 18 and 2,000 words out of over 40,000. They're judging a symphony on the basis of the first phrase, which is not the basis to go on.

It has been my experience that if you ask people what is wrong with something they will tell you whether there's something wrong with it or not. Their comments are meaningless because they are driven by the feeling that they ought to say something, preferably something negative because that can demonstrate their supposed insight. It's the mentality of a focus group, which is exactly the reason why our TV shows are so dreadful and our movies so cookie-cutter and lame. Listening to the comments is a case of the tail wagging the dog.

As you can tell from the length of this post, this is a complicated subject. I've only so far skimmed the surface. And as far as this contest goes, the only criterion that anyone should be applying to any of the entries is this: If you checked this book out from the library and read through Chapter One, would you go on to Chapter Two? And if so, how eagerly would you turn the page?

However, that is all now neither here nor there. There are five slots out of 20 in the next round that are picked by the Gather.com staff. Maybe I'll make that cut, maybe I won't. Either way, life will go on and so will Michael Drayton, Detective Guy.

If You Dare

Read and vote on Chapter One of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy.

The Novel Competition Continued

The first chapter is up on the Gather.com website. Be the first on your block to read it.

It's On

Yesterday, I wrote a brief biography of myself and a synopsis of the story of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy, and submitted the manuscript and everything else necessary to the First Chapters contest at Gather.com. Anyone who is interested is welcome to read the first chapters of manuscripts and rate them. You just have to sign up for a gather.com membership, which is free. Decisions concerning the first round will be announced on April 3rd.

My contribution will not be up for as many as three business days. I'll post a follow-up when it is. My advice to one and all is to vote your heart if you vote at all. I'm not going to check either my ratings or any comments, since the possibility of being terribly hurt far outweighs the chance that I won't.

The guidelines for voting read as follows:

All members who vote in the Competition as well as the Grand Prize judging panel must consider the following criteria equally when judging: 1) Quality of writing (including grammar and spelling); 2) Author’s ability to engage the reader; 3) Originality of the author's voice; 4) Potential of the finished book in the marketplace.

I think my story scores well on all four counts, but you can never tell how these things will work out.

Anyway, if you're interested, go take a look. You don't have to be a member to just read, only vote, so why not go and see what you think. It might turn out to be worth your while.

Let's Call It Adieu

I just finished the first complete draft of "Michael Drayton, Detective Guy." It stands at 42,000 words over 18 chapters, and I will submit it to the First Chapters contest tomorrow. I'll post the details about the contest and how people can vote for their favorites. (I believe it involves signing up on Gather.com, but that's free.)

In the meantime, I'm just stunned. After that passes, I'm going to go to work on a non-Drayton short story in the hopes that I can forestall the plunge into depression that usually follows completion of such a task. I'm going to try, as best I can, to not think about Drayton for at least a month. Maybe by then I'll be ready to attack the rewrites.

that's the thing about this writing business: It never stops.

The Homestretch

I did manage to finish the next-to-last chapter yesterday and carved out the beginning of the last chapter as well.

At the rate I've been going, I'll be done by the end of the week.

It's a Novel, But Not a Doo

Back in an earlier life, I worked for a relatively small company, under 100 employees, and we had staff meetings for our entire department of 60 or so people every Wednesday. One Wednesday, one of the supervisors, a black guy named Charles, who was one of the nicest people I've ever met, led the meeting his only flub came right at the end when, instead of bidding us adieu, he said, "Let's call it a doo." Now, I called this a flub, but I actually thought and still think that it is inspired. Even though it's been almost 25 years since I heard it, I will still from time-to-time call it a doo, but only when appropriate to the circumstances.

Well, a few minutes ago, I crossed the 40,000-word threshold on Drayton, which means that even the most persnickety editor will have to consider it a full novel and not a novella. However, that being said, I am not done. I should have the chapter I am working on now done by the end of the day, leaving only the final chapter to write. I'm nearly there. But it's not a doo.

Closing in on Closing In

I'm happy to report that the Drayton novel is now up over 39,000 words. I'm about a chapter-and-a-half from the end. And while this chapter is coming out with surprising fluidity, the final one might be a jumble and merely a cascade of revelations. I have 13 days to finish it.

This Day in Drayton History

I've crossed the 38,000 word barrier just about a minute ago. The story's moving along toward its conclusion, but I can't guarantee that it will be done in time for the contest. Although it just might. For all I know, it'll be done tomorrow. At least in terms of this draft. There will be many hours of rewrites before it is somewhat to the point at which I can in good conscience offend the public with it. But it should be contest-good soon enough.

the shame of the whole thing is that I don't have the time to worry over each sentence and make sure the whole thing sounds right and feels right. The first two-thirds have received that level of attention and seem to show it. This last third may not reach those dizzying heights before March 15th. With any luck, somebody will pay me to fix that part later on.

At any rate, a boy can dream.

The Latest

Michael Drayton, Detective Guy is now up over 36,000 words. In fact, I've added more than 4,000 in the last 34 days alone. If I hadn't gone back and cut and rewritten a couple of previous chapters, I'd be even further along. (All numbers I give are net, not gross.) In fact, I went back today and trimmed Chapter 14 yet again--getting rid of some references to two characters who will never show up in this version--which leaves me only 98 words up, as of this writing, rather than maybe 250. But it's not about the word count, really, and I am trying to do a halfway decent job of it, even with a deadline looming over me.

Regardless, I will have a draft done by the middle of next month. If I can manage to work every day instead of 3 days out of every 4, I may even finish early. although, knowing me, it will probably involve a crazed, last-minute dash to an improbable finish.

The Novel Grows

I've just broken the 35,000 word barrier on Michael Drayton, Detective Guy. At the rate I'm going, I should have around 40,000 by the time I have to submit it for the contest. My plan is to continue writing somewhat carefully until March 1st. The last couple of chapters might turn out a bit sketchy, but they should get the point across.

All good wishes are gratefully accepted.

The Final Push

Yesterday, courtesy of my friends at Baby Got Books, I found out about something called The First Chapters Writing Competition that is being held on a site called Gather.com. It has been rightly described as a kind of American Idol for novelists. Now, I am nothing if not a novelist. Okay. Maybe I'm nothing if not an aspiring novelist, but those are just the kind of jamokes they're looking for. The first prize is $5,000 and publication of the manuscript submitted by Touchstone/Fireside, which is an imprint of Simon & Schuster. I have decided to try to finish Drayton in time to enter. The deadline is March 15th.

Now, I'm probably about 2/3 of the way through on the manuscript, which, since I've got about 32,000 words written, leaves me somewhere between 10-and-20,000 short. The only way to accomplish this is to work on Drayton as close to every day as I can. (I have a wedding to go to in February; I might lose a day or two there.)

I've recently been tracking my progress in 40-day cycles, so I have some idea of whether I can pull this off. Since, in the most recent 40-day cycle, I worked on 16 of the last 18 days (88%), I think it is possible. Using Google Docs has made it easier for me to sneak in work sessions during the day, while I'm presumably getting paid to do something else. However, the thing is that I am employed in the office of the English Department of a prominent Southern University, my feeling is that should be paying me to do this. After all, should I win or at least be one of the five finalists, wouldn't the prestige of the department be increased? After all, it would be the English Department in which even the admins can write.

Anyway, I'm going to try to keep track of my progress here so that well-wishers can keep up with the process. For example, one of the quirks of the competition is that the entire manuscript needs to be submitted as well as separate documents representing the first three chapters. Since I was saving each chapter separately, I am now in the position of having to compile the whole thing in one long document.

Also, the first three chapters must be at least 2,000 words each. Well, my original Chapter One was about 1,600 words, so I've had to combine that with Chapter Two. The former Chapter Three is now Chapter Two. The new Chapter Three was cobbled together by conjoining the original Chapters Four and Five. It's very confusing.

Since I have tomorrow off, I'm hoping to really add some wordage. Wish me luck.