2011's Last Writing Update

[madwriter]

PROGRESS REPORT FOR 12/30/11 - 1/1/12

New Words: 5500 (1400 / 1200 / 2900). I always seem to have a writing burst at the end of a year or the beginning of a new one, as if I'm trying to make up for days I didn't write during the year. I feel like the flunking student who comes to his teacher right before (or after) the final exam and asks, "Can I do extra credit?" Anyway, all three of these were on Chapter 1 ("Those Who Came Before") Part 4 (renamed "The Sun Callers") of Arizona. Ahote learns the layout of Chaco Canyon from a mysterious holy man named the Gambler.

Total Words: 53750, including a bit of trimming yesterday.

Reason For Stopping: Get-out-and-do-end-of-year-stuff for the first two days; for the last one I was just bleary eyed.

Book Year: An undetermined point in the early 1100s.

Mammalian Assistance: None the first two; for #3, when Vegas wasn't laying on his box pile he was snuggled up against my chest.

Exercise: Walks with Tucker around the neighborhood; one walk with Laurie and the dogs around campus.

Stimulants: Coke / None / A bowl of Turkey Hill Cookies 'n' Cream ice cream topped by chocolate Magic Shell.

Today's Opening Passage(s):

Friday: Four years later, Ahote was pulled away from home again. This time it was not because of a disaster, but because of the ancestors he’d so rarely paid any mind to before.

Saturday: Ahote realized too late that he was wrong about feeling like Black Mesa wasn't home. Longing for the valley flooded him once he was taken away from it. But he was too terrified of the Gambler to even think about running home. In fact he could hardly think about anything at all through his fear, even answers to the questions the priest piled on top of him like a pueblo of endless floors.

Sunday: The genius of Chaco was so vast that Ahote spent the rest of his childhood trying to understand it. Every time he thought its builders could not get any more inventive, he learned something new.

Darling Du Jour: Nothing springs out at me, though I'm feeling too lazy at the moment to do much more than skim.

Total Submissions In December: 1.

Total Submissions In 2011: 42 (that is, submitting 42 times; some of those had multiple items per submission.)

Total Submissions Out Right Now: 5.

Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Baxter; Cather; The Man With the Iron Heart by Harry Turtledove.