Category: writing
August finally felt like a return to normal—whatever that would be in my progress on the novel. managed to finish chapter 22 and get a good start on chapter 23 without too much dithering about what’s happening in the novel. It’s still a challenge to get myself to re-read the pages when it’s time to […]
I got an e-mail yesterday inquiring about the spelling of a word that I used in a poem that will be published this fall. I had written “galabiyya” in reference to the robe-like garb that some Islamic men wear. My editor, doing due diligence found spellings of “galabeya” and “jalabiya.” I honestly didn’t even remember […]
Something has changed. I’m not necessarily having the progress I’d ideally like, but I’m doing much better at getting the words onto the page. Still a lot of flat stretches in the graph, but the vertical bits are more vertical than they’ve been for months. The submittable queue has drained from 8 down to 5. […]
June was yet another mediocre month, although I did at least finish a draft of chapter 21. Now the only problem is getting myself willing to do a critical read of that chapter and start rewriting. The submittable queue continues to trickle its way to empty, dropping from 10 down to 8. I have two submissions […]
See that graph on the right? Looks pretty good at least for the end of the month, eh? Until you look at the vertical scale and see that I wrote less than 700 words the whole month. But at least things are starting to pick up and maybe June will be better. As for clearing […]
April started off with some promise but quickly leveled off. There were only nine days that I wrote anything at all. On the good news front, I’ve settled Catan numerous times. My Submittable queue continues to drain, a little bit faster than last month, so now I’m down from 17 to 13 submissions. Half of this […]
So you’d think that with quarantine I’d be more productive as a writer. You’d think wrong. I made good progress on revising the last chapter I wrote in the first half of the month, but the new chapter has been coming a few words at a time. My Submittable queue has drained much more slowly this […]
February continued to be a crappy month for me personally, although, unlike January, I actually made some progress on the novel. Chapter 19 is finished and Chapter 20 is nearly done with its first draft. I even managed to write a paragraph on a short story. My Submittable queue continues to drain, with its total down […]
January was a crappy month. I did very little writing on the novel. I started a new project which I’ve since discarded as self-indulgent garbage. The lone bright spot was an acceptance for a story and the slow decline of the size of my submittable queue (down from 53 to 31). I can only hope […]