August 12

Time worked:  :15

Work done:  My brain wasn’t really in a great place for continuing on with that battle scene (which is actually nearing the end finally), so I spent some time just typing up previous scene rewrites. I’ve been doing all the work by hand, so it had to go into the computer sometime.

August 11

Time worked:  1:36

Work done:  Working out answers to questions about my story world that have been brought up by one member of the Tri-County Sisterhood of the Traveling Book, in preparation for this week’s meeting. Also more battle scene rewriting for “Adventures in Pithea”. I may have found a way to use a smokescreen to solve an issue of location and placement. Literally.

August 9

Time worked:  unknown, but probably at least an hour

Work done:  Discussing questions with one of the members of the Tri-County Sisterhood of the Traveling Book. Questions that came up during the meeting–many questions, not all of which I could answer. Some new ideas and solutions came up during that time, and we did our best to take notes to send to the third member of the TCSTB.

August 8

Time worked:  :52

Work done:  More battle scene rewriting for “Adventures in Pithea”. Evan has a more heroic entrance, Quinn is in bad shape, and Missy managed to impress Naolin. Then I threw more monsters at them so they have more reason to run away now.

August 7

Time worked:  :45

Work done:  More battle scene rewriting. Missy’s still off doing her thing, Julius and Naolin aren’t meshing as well as they thought, and Quinn is trying to hold his own and failing. A hero is about to enter.

August 6

Time worked:  2:26

Work done:  First meeting of the Tri-County Sisterhood of the Traveling Book. We may have to use an acronym for that. Okay, so that’s not what we’re really going to call ourselves, but in the absence of a name, I went with some things that were thrown around as ideas, for now. My sisters have been reading through my first draft, and two (out of three) are done with it. We are planning to have regular meetings over Skype to compare notes and hopefully fix this story up right. Tonight’s almost two and a half hour meeting went way longer than we’d planned (the plan was an hour). That was mostly because I revealed some hidden things that readers of the book wouldn’t otherwise know, so they can help me make sure the story reflects them correctly, and that everything works okay. Those secrets spawned many questions. We didn’t even get to the text, and there are still more questions that need answered. I’m starting to see more clearly how complicated I’ve made my world. Still, I’m glad the first meeting has now happened, it worked over Skype, and there weren’t too many problems (other than me feeling bad at keeping them so long)!

August 5

Time worked:  1:11

Work done:  Revising “Adventures in Pithea.” Adding new scenes that I typed up previously to their place in the overall story to prepare for the first meeting of the minds tomorrow night with my alpha readers.

August 4

Time worked:  :46

Work done:  Revising “Adventures in Pithea.” Still working on the battle scene. I’ve decided that Naolin doesn’t need to be quite so clumsy, and Quinn isn’t nearly damaged enough. I’ll have to do something about that.

Overall, I’m on page 82 out of 327, so there’s still a long road ahead.

Aug 1-3

Time worked:  0:00

With the anticipation of a weekend full of cleaning and organizing our house, I decided to take a break from revising. Somehow planning ahead to do no work on my writing feels better than thinking I still may, but not getting around to it. Tomorrow I hope to get right back into it.

On a more interesting note, I may have a lead on a real title for what is currently being dubbed “Adventures in Pithea.” I came up with an idea a few weeks ago and am waiting until I can mull it over with my alpha readers, hopefully this week. I’m excited, but have been very patient in waiting.