Well, I can’t deny, it’s been nice having no work related concerns for a week now. I didn’t exactly change the world in my time off, though I did manage to get to most of my goals. I think its helped that my list of goals for the week only had two items on it – writing, and getting an oil change, and I can live without the oil change for a little while longer.
Granted, the week wasn’t without its random visit to the ER. Anna came home from school the other day complaining about a headache and running a mild fever (99/100). We kept her home the next day, fed her Tylenol, everything was fine, we thought. But as soon as the Tylenol wore off, pow, her fever returned at 104 (hence the visit to the ER). Still no clue as to what was causing the fever, but needless to say that put a spin on our activities for the week.
But, all in all, a nice quiet week. I’m a super spectacular day’s work away from being 50% done with the first draft of the novel. Granted, that 47% it currently hovers it is a bit misleading, and I must confess my guilt. The output has been steady, let me start there. Nothing I’ve done was to mask a slacking Mikey in the background. But it began to dawn on me that this is only the first draft. When I write short fiction (which, psst, I’m working on a piece on the side now ;), the first draft is all boney and bare, the second draft is where I overfeed the beast to see what gaps can be filled and where the story can go, and then the third draft is where I whittle it all down to the juicy story. If I follow the same formula here – and it is my intent to – then cutting my initial word count goal from 100 to 80 thousand words makes sense, since in the next draft I’m going to be filling in gaps, expanding scenes, adding missing things like “the” and “said Bozo".
So don’t be too proud of my progress, but don’t knock it either. And for any newcomers (or for that matter, the rest of ya 🙂 – yeah, I know this will most probably never be published, but even if I classify it as a practice novel, at least it keeps me off the streets at night…er, yeah, something like that.
Off to get ready for my day, which includes a trip to the FieldHouse for a birthday party. w00t.