Finally, "The Dare" has begun! Lisa Silverthorne and I are on our quest to write a novel each during the month of February. FINAL WORD COUNT!!!!!!!66,500 WordsCheck out Lisa's progress If you find this interesting, drop me your comments 
Februray 27 -- 2,450 wordsStick a fork in this baby...It's Done!!!! Final count 66,650 words in 27 days. Not quite Silverthorneian, but I'll take it! I'm stunned. Totally at a loss for words. I'm sitting at the keyboard with that, "Okay, what do I do now?" feeling. Perhaps I'll get on here again tomorrow and leave a wrap-up. But tonight, I'm just a bit too tired. This was GREAT FUN! Of course, there's always the rewrite. February 26 -- 1,250 words Did a little more than I thought I would. All the bad guys but one are put away! February 25 -- 2,350 words Very close to completion. Lost of plot points came together tonight--only one more to go...but it's a big one! I probably won't get a lot done tomorrow, as there's a big thing at Brigid's school. But look for this puppy to be put to bed Thursday. Looks like is should close out at about 66K words, give or take a couple!. February 24 -- 300 words I was at work until 8:00 tonight, so what little I accomplished was just because I refused to have a zero word day! February 23 -- 5,100 words Super Mega Congrats to Lisa Silverthorne!!!!!!Lisa finished her novel late last night--85,000 words worth. I'm insanely jealous!Another good day for me, though. Mine crested the 60K limit today. So I guess I could say I have met the bare-bones intention of the exercise. I won't be happy until I bring it home, though! Didn't get it all finished, but I managed to get to within 3-5,000 words. I've got a plot point yet to work out, but it should be no problem. With any luck at all, I'll finish Monday or Tuesday. The words "Bodin Solution" come to mind. (Inside joke for those Fishers 5 members!) February 22 -- 10,000 words I'm breaking here for dinner. will pick up again in another hour or so. Any of you who have been checking in every day may notice that I picked up a few extra words last night. Nothing spectacular, but I updated the number today anyway! "Evening" report: 2,850 words Wow! Wrote the most intense scene of the book, and was surprised to find that it flowed me all the way to 10,000 words for the day. Actually, I cannot tell a lie. It's about 12:30am, but I'm figuring if congress can do one of those stop the clock things, so can I. The bad news, though, is that I doubt that I'll finish the book in Brown County. It's still possible, I suppose. But I figure I've still got 10,000 words to go, and I don't think I have another 10,000 word day left in me. I'm totally exhausted from a full sixteen hour day of writing, and drained from action of this last scene. (If I ever sell the movie rights, look for Arnold Schwartzeneger to play the lead role!) Going to crash. "Afternoon" report: 3,350 words I ran into about an hour's snag this afternoon as I thought through the motivations of a couple characters, and tried to stitch my story back together again. Of course, things have worked out. I'm now chugging through a series of scenes geared to bring all the elements together, and I even think it'll work out okay in the end. So, given this little break, I'm actually pretty estatic about getting nearly 3,400 words this "afternoon". I've still got a chance to finish the sucker before I leave Brown County. By the way, Cutie. I ate lunch at Hardees, and plan to eat dinner here at the lodge (assuming they'll serve me in my scruffy, unshaven state!) "Morning" Report: 3,800 words Nearing the 50K word mark here in Brown County. After a medium late night, I woke up at 8:30, showered, and was writing by 9:00. Been kicking the story out at about 900 words an hour, and the tale is beginning to do some acrobatics on me. I was a little bummed about it a cay or two ago, but now it's really cooking. My outline, that was so helpful for 30,000 words and then was so important after I updated it, is now pretty much equivalent to a worn-out pshycic--a totally useless mass of tissue that mere sits around picking up odd notes and stray thoughts. In otherwords, my characters took a turn on me this morning, and now I'm back to Indiana Jones mode once again. I've got to admit that it's pretty fun, though. I still think the novel will end as I had planned, but it should be interesting getting there. Luckily, my lovely wife managed to stash a few deluxe brownies in amid the snacks she sent with me. February 21 -- 2,100 words Crested 45,000 words tonight. I'm writing from the hills of Indiana's Brown County State Park, courtesy of my beloved wife. That's right, she's sent me away on my own writer's retreat! I'll probably get another thousand words or so tonight, then really hit it tomorrow and Sunday. As a result of my writing location, I find I'm unable to update the graph on my page, so you'll just have to check it out Sunday night when I get back. In the mean time, I've dealt with bad guy number one and brought on bad guy number two. Things are moving. Hope I can bring this thing home this weekend--not guaranteeing anything, but we'll see. February 20 -- 1,300 words A bit of a disappointing evening. I had hoped to get much further along tonight, but it's been a long day and I've had difficulty concentrating. Still managed to eek it over 43K for the total, which leaves me a bit ahead of where I need to be for the whole thing. Will be spending the weekend in Brown County, writing, though. I have a pipe dream of actually bringing the novel to a close over the weekend...ha! February 19 -- 1,500 words A few less words tonight than yesterday, but not bad. I left off at a place where one of the bad guys is about to get his due, so I'm kinda cranked about pushing through tomorrow! February 18 -- 2,050 words Wherein the main character gains the first real glimpse into the depths of his problems! I'm fighting a sudden urge to add another dimension to this book! I had an idea two days ago that is just now starting to spread its wings and make waves. I'll probably try to push through to the end according to the original plan, however, then come back to it later if I'm still interested. Ah the joys of novel writing to a deadline! February 17 -- 2,250 words Not a bad week day. I got through a couple of pretty, uh, ...traumatic... scenes today. Let's just say the bad guys are getting pretty bad! In addition, I think I've got the final piece of the puzzle almost figured out. The ending is getting clearer as I draw nearer! Not sure, but my best guess is that this will end up at about 65-70K words. Obviously, I'm going to need a pretty big weekend to get me there. But I have faith! February 16 -- 4,150 words Thanks to everyone who is dropping me encouraging notes. I've gotten several, and they really help! I really struggled to get this production today. We did go to Louisville yesterday (watched the Cards pull out a close win!), and had a great time with Papa and Mingo and uncle Jeff. We stayed up until 1:00 AM, and then didn't get on the road until early afternoon. The result was that I "lost" 3-4 hours that I had kinda planned on writing. But, I still ended up at over 4K words, and am happy with where the story is going now. If I can stick about 2K words a day up here for the next 4 week days, I'll feel better. I'll note again, that if I hadn't reorganized my outline, I would probably be in terrible shape right now. That step is certainly paying off! Bottom line, despite having a good time, my weekend was less productive than I had planned. February 15 -- 2,100 words (so far) I'm not done for the day yet, but thought I would put an update on line. I spent 2-3 hours pushing my outline farther up stream today, so my wordcount is down again when looked at all by its lonesome. However, when you take into account that my outline grew 2,000 words you can get a feel for what I've accomplished. Stepping back and getting my thoughts in line was about the best thing I could have done. I was getting bogged down in the story as I was creating. Now I've got a pretty crisp line between the five major characters/organizations in the story, and I feel a lot more comfortable while I'm actually writing. Since I've finished this step, my word rate has been nearly 1,000 words an hour. Planning on going to Louisville this afternoon to see my brother. Lisa will drive so I can add more to my wordcount on the way. (Another sign of support!...is this woman wonderful, or what?) February 14 -- 500 words A slow day word-count wise, but I did go back and redo my outline from the beginning up to about where I am--so that's clean. Next I'll have to go forward with the outline. Besides, with it being Valentine's day, I had a few other things to do...see Brigid's school program, take Lisa to lunch, watch "The Trouble With Cats and Dogs"...etc. So, while I am behind, I'm feeling pretty decent about things overall. To show you how much support I'm getting from Lisa, she gave me a Valentine's present of a Writers Retreat in Brown County for next weekend. She reserved a room for me, and is sending me away to finish this sucker! Wow...what pressure! February 13 -- 1,250 words Moderately slow day. I'm a "grind it out" portion of the novel. My goal was to be at 30K words by Friday, and it looks like I'll get there. But I've definitely decided to spend the first hour or two Saturday scouring my outline. As far as the tale is concerned, the main character is just now getting an understanding of what he's up against. If I've done my job right (big if right now), it'll read like he's poling a boat upstream, dipped his push rod into the water, and come up bottomless! I've gotten a couple e-mails about this dare. I'm really happy people have an interest in this, as it's been a blast so far! February 12 -- 1,500 words Good week day. My wordcount was accomplished despite having a basketball game that took most of my evening (we won, by the way). It's become obvious to me that I'll need to take an hour or two and revamp my outline. It's just getting too cluttered with my hand-written mark-ups. February 11 -- 2,200 words A good day. I've gotten my main character back into some more heat, and the plot lines are begining to intersect a bit more tightly. No! Don't cross the beams! I still need to do some more surgery on past stuff to make the plotline work, but I'm valiantly trying to hold off doing this for a while (until I get a bit more mileage under me). This is a big problem for me right now, as my plot has drifted from what I set out to do from day one, so I'm almost totally on my own...like Indiana Jones...I'm making this up as I go! I'm trying a change in my writing habits--writing in the evenings as a general rule rather than in the mornings. This change has nothing to do specifically with the Dare, but is meant to give me greater flexibility in my overall approach to how I spend my time. Lisa (my wife, not the writer!) have talked this over and decided to give it a try. I can't begin to tell you how great Lisa's been during this strange effort of mine! February 10 -- 1,100 words Not a bad week day. This total included going back and doing some surgery on earlier stuff in order to accommodate a major plot shift. February 9 -- 1,300 words Good progress for me, seeing that I only had an hour and a half or so to write. The Fishers 5 meets today. The big news on the novel front, though, is that I made a major plot change. It required only slight modification of what was already written, and I'm very excited about it. When it hit me it was like a piece of a jigsaw puzlle snapping in place. Almost makes me want to call in sick Monday...nah!!!! February 8 -- 4,100 words Excellent progress today, as I spent the better part of the morning critiquing work for tomorrow's Fishers 5 session. I expect tomorrow to be a slow writing day (only an hour or two in the morning), so I was glad to get a bit done this afternoon. Made a major discovery today about a character that will make this story take off (I think!). I'm very excited about it. I also wrote a really cool piece of the novel that looks at an important aspect of genetics, something I've been thinking about for a little while. I had a great time getting to understand my own feelings on the subject in the process--another reason I love writing so much! February 7 -- 1,200 words. A good morning for me. The story is getting really fun, but also a bit more difficult to write. Maureen McHugh always says the way to write an interesting story is to make things continue to get worse for our characters. If this is true, I'm doing okay. My character is in deep trouble right now from at least four different fronts. This is making for great fun writing, but beneral frustration in plotting such an interwoven tale. No simple adventure tale for my Novel Dare...no way! Overall I'm running at about 6-700 words an hour, just as a data point. February 6 -- 1,100 words This is a great Thursday for me. I have a standing 7:00 am meeting on Thursday, and it costs me an hour writing. So this is a pretty huge total for me. The story outline is really starting to come together--despite the fact that half of it is a mass of hastily scrawled notes! I haven't mentioned much about the tale in these pages, so I'll try to rectify that now. This book is a science fiction piece, complete with (what I hope is) a fresh take on genetic engineering. I've developed a plot around a murder, goverment hoo-ha, foreign intrigue, and the ballet. Sound interesting? So far, it's been a blast to write. I've already been doing some research on the net, but one of the things I'm doing by pushing the plot along despite surity on certain things is exactly where I need to do more when I'm done. I think it'll go further than 60K words, too. So I've got to get humping. My goal is to both finish the novel, as well as line edit it onnce before the month is over (always pressing the limit, I know)! February 5 -- 1,000 words (and working) Did another thousand words this morning before work. Again, not bad. I was up fairly late last noight--10:30!--so I didn't get up bright and early like I would normally. I may get a few more words before the end of the day. If so, I'll update this later. Note, I've fixed the link to Lisa's Dare page (I think). I'll check it later today, but feel free to click on it to see how she's doing. I've read the novelette she's basing her novel on and it's wonderful. Can't wait to see it! February 4 -- 1,000 words Look at Lisa go! I ended the day at a thousand words, which isn't bad for a weekday, anyway. But I also spent some time thinking about the plot a bit and makeing sure I understood what I was doing. (Ha!) I've got to average 2200 words a day, and I'm well ahead of that. February 3 -- 2,800 words Looks like Lisa's drawn a bit ahead of me. No problem, though. I'm chugging along at a strong pace, and I'm happy with where I'm at. I had a great day for a week day--2800 words. I made a fairly major shift in the story line, adding a new chapter one (or prologue, I haven't decided which). It tags on to the current story, accentuating the theme and focusing on the main character a bit more strongly than what is now chapter 2. I can't begin to say how interesting this process is at this point. Congrats to Lisa on her sale to Millenium SF! February 2 -- 5,300 words Eeked out a few more words today than yesterday. This despite stopping to wathc my beloved Louisville Cardinals go down in flames, and taking my lovely better half out to eat. I'm having a hard time avoiding going backward to rewrite stuff. But this too, shall pass. I see Lisa got at least 4500 words yesterday, too. February 1 -- 5,000 words The hard part about this is that I'm certain Lisa sat down to write starting midnight last night. I, on the other hand suffered through a restless evening's sleep. The cat woke me up at least three times I remember, so I slept until somethin past 6:30. Perhaps I'll kill the cat. :) Knowing that Lisa is producing makes it more important that I do, also...purely for ego, if nothing else! I did manage three chapters today. I may, however, merge chapters two and three, so my three chapters might truly be two by the time I'm finished. Bottom line is about 4500 words through this afternoon. Perhaps I'll ge another thousand or so done this evening...but we'll see. January 29, 1997 -- The Origins of the Dare: This page is the one that will track progress I make against a novel I'll be writing over the month of February. How did I get roped into writing anovel in a single month, you might ask? And the shortest month of the year, too? Well, it's like this.... After our January Fishers 5 meeting Lisa Silverthorne and I went out for dinner. We discussed a zillion things, among them an idea espoused by Kris Rusch and Dean Smith. That would be, you got it in one, to write a novel in a single month. This should be great fun--Lisa assures me (yeah, right, and she likes root canals, too!). More details coming in a very short while! |