On a roll

I don’t keep track of how much I write any given day/week/month/year except for special projects, like NaNoWriMo. However, I think it’s safe to say that the past six weeks have been my most productive period ever in terms of total word count.

Of course, word count doesn’t really mean much if the words are drek. I can’t vouch for the 95K words of the novel that I wrote because I haven’t read it yet. I know that sounds strange, but I haven’t actually read the novel, even though I wrote it. I’m sure when I do get around to reading it, I will discover things in it that I have no memory of putting there, as if it were written by someone else. It’s only later, during the editing process that the words will become so familiar to me that I can recite them in my sleep, or complete a sentence in my mind after reading only the first few words.

However, I finished a 5900-word short story yesterday (started on Thursday, I think) that I am very pleased with—and this one I have read a couple of times since completing it. It’s intended for an MWA anthology, so I won’t say too much about it at this point. The anthology has a certain number of slots open for general (non-invited) submissions and this slush goes through a blind reading process, so on the off chance that one of the six readers peruses this blog, I won’t expose myself by discussing the story in any detail.

When I started, I knew where the story began, where the momentum came from, and what would happen when everything collided. What I didn’t know, though, was the resolution. How the whole package would be neatly tidied up. My main character was in pretty dire straits and I didn’t know how to get him from there to anywhere else. I decided I’d worry about that when I got there, which proved to be the right approach. By the time I got him into a fix, I knew something about the person who controlled his destiny, and I understood what this person might do in these circumstances. I didn’t know that character well enough in the beginning to predict how he’d act later on. In part, I guess, this is why I wrote the story.

When it all comes together like that, though, it’s like magic, like the epitome of synchronicity. The turn of a phrase seals it all in wax. My first reader found only one awkward sentence to quibble over. I’ve found more than that on re-reads, but the story is solid, I think. The nuts and bolts, at least. Now it’s time to get out the sander and the varnish and the polish and pretty it up. Fortunately I have something like six weeks for this process, though I’ll probably get impatient before too much time elapses and send it out. After all, if you sand something too long, all you have left is dust.

Good news for people who are waiting for the limited edition of The Road to the Dark Tower—it started shipping from CD today, though the entire shipping process may take up to two weeks.

I’ve been working with the Russian translator over a few points in the book, which has been fun. I guess people must be buying it for Christmas gifts, too, because the Amazon sales ranking is down to the 6000s again, which is lower than it’s been for several months.