ROW80 - Early Wrap Up

Tomorrow is the end of A Round of Words in 80 Days, however, since we report on Sundays and Wednesdays, I simply shift my whole 80 Day effort a day earlier; start on Day 0, which is a Sunday, and end on Day 79, which is a Tuesday -- to be reported on Wednesday.

Which is today.

This has been one crazy writing dare. This summer, I piled two efforts on top of this one: The Clarion Write-A-Thon, and my Blog Story Experiment.  That led to one of the more productive summers I've had in a while, but it also meant that I have been going continuously -- with overlapping efforts and dares -- for a very long time.

So I don't even care what the ultimate count is, of minutes or words or chapters or whatever the heck I was counting for this dare. (I changed methods several times.)  For those of you who are counting, here are the counts for the last three days.  Tuesday night's numbers are guestimated. I forgot to set timers and given that everyone in my life seems to be having crises right now, I was thoroughly distracted.

• Sunday Day 77 - 290 minutes.
• Monday Day 78 - 60 minutes.
• Tuesday Day 79 - 80 minutes.

The Misplaced Hero is still on track for being complete on September 27, with a "credit cookie" on October 1.  I don't yet know when the ebook version will be available.   Since I've been doing some editing as I go, and most of it has had "Drawer Time" I should be able to get a good editing pass on most of it even before the story is done posting.

Really Tired

The thing that has been most exhausting about this is that writing a story live, for the blog, with deadlines, both energizes and demands: I want to work and I have to work.  Both.

And that takes you to a whole different level of work. (It also didn't help, I think, that my day job schedule changed, and all my work is clustered at the beginning of the week, when I have deadlines....)

What this hasn't been is remunerative.  My book sales have dropped off to nothing.  But I don't care because it's better to be poor and energized.

Even so... up to now, I have been writing a story here on the blog that doesn't have much relation to my other books.  In particular, I don't have any other book in this series available for sale, and my other books are in other genres.

However, I hope very soon to have The Misplaced Hero available as an ebook, for those who didn't want to read it online as a serial.  And the next story will be the sequel to a book I've already published.  We'll see if that makes a difference this fall.

However, my bigger goal will be to slowly develop the audience for the blog.

That is, while I get a lot of writing done, but not marketing or anything else.  Everything I write here will be available later when I am ready to bother with other things.  I have always been a great believer in building the momentum first.

I'll talk next Sunday about my upcoming goals for fall, and the next ROW80 round will start on the following Sunday. (Or, technically, on Monday the first, but I start early.)

See you in the funny papers.