27,000 words

Not counting schoolwork and deleted/rewritten scenes, and not counting the first chapter of the SF novel, I've written 27,000 words this month. Two novelettes linked by setting, tone, and a few characters.

I'm pumped. I have to write a paper today (about 3000 words on the modern Mormon church, not about the dogma so much as the business and politics of being a religion on the cusp), and then I can get started on the next piece.

I haven't decided if it's going to be a cop story or a contract killer story. I read a bunch of Block and watched Grosse Point Blank over the last couple days so I won't end up covering terretory that's already been done. Maybe I'll make the cop a contract killer. Pretty good cover for him, if you think about it.

I've been writing in bursts of 1000-2000 words/day. Get up in the morning, read over and make minor revisions on the piece I'm working on, then either continue from where I left off or scrapping the previous night's work and totally rewriting it. Break for school and whatever else needs doing, then work from where I stopped before lunch. It seems to be working for me as I've only had to scrap a night's output twice. Bith times it sucked, but I was able to save a couple hundred words.

If you count schoolwork, those false starts, and the SF, my output for April is probably in the neighborhood of 40,000 words. I can live with that. That's probably the highest output of decent work I've had in my life.

It will be interesting to see if I can maintain it, if I've established a new pattern or if, when my mood swings back to black, if I'll go back to nothing for months on end. Somehow I doubt that. One of the things I've been learning in school is how to perform on demand. Professors don't accept writer's block as an excuse for not doing aan essay. Why should I accept if for my personal work? I've always been my own worst critic -- now I need to be my own best teacher.