So, September’s over now. Where in the heck did all that time go? In some ways, I can still remember the summer…but in other ways, it’s never been further away.
So, what did I do this past month? Plenty. I got a good start on school (14 credits this semester), I quit the writing advisor job and replaced it with two TA jobs, and I turned 25 years old. Quarter century…and still in school. I feel like some kind of relic. “An elegant weapon for a more civilized age…”
As far as writing goes, I wrote 41,649 words total, averaging 1,602 words per day (not counting Sundays–counting Sundays, I averaged 1,388). I passed the 3/4ths mark on Bringing Stella Home 2.0 and started work on Genesis Earth 4.0.
Not bad! I’m surprised I wrote so much; 41k is almost as much as nanowrimo. However, I can’t help but wonder: how many of those words are good words?
It’s a much more subjective thing to measure, but I do feel that my craft has improved. Now that I’ve started the rewrite on Genesis Earth, I’m catching a surprising number of sentences and paragraphs that could be much better phrased. For today, I “wrote” 1,616 words, but only got about 1,000 words further into the story (I measure wordcount with compare documents, totaling all the deletions and additions). After the last revision–just last July–I felt very satisfied with the draft as I’d written it. The fact that I’m changing so much on this rewrite shows that I’ve set the bar a lot higher for quality of writing (at least, I hope that’s what it means).
School is still kicking my trash. I’ve got papers up the wazoo this entire month–3 major ones, two minor ones, and at least one midterm, not to mention all the midterms and papers I’ll be grading. Oh, and I’m reading about a dozen academic articles per week. Dense articles. The kind that suck your life out through your eyes.
Because of all that, and because of World Fantasy at the end of the month, I’ve decided to put Bringing Stella Home on temporary hold until I finish the revision of Genesis Earth. Got to put priorities first, and that’s how it falls. If the revision takes longer than expected, I may have to change my personal deadline for Bringing Stella Home to Thanksgiving.
But come Thanksgiving, I am definitely starting something new!
