Making Progress.

Apparently, if I schedule time to do something, I seem to do it – at least most of the time. The only casualties have been an oil change that got postponed because I might need the car, and outside activities that were put off because of the consistently freezing weather  – cold enough to require daytime water bottle changes for the rabbits. Normally I’d resist rescheduling things, but our youngest daughter saw fit to give me her cold and I’ve been coughing my way through both day and night most of the week.

I’ve already had pneumonia twice, and I think I’ve learned my lesson:

stay warm and dry when you’re sick.

Progress and Productivity.

On Wednesday I took the liberty of collecting all the chapters I’d revised into one to see how ‘far’ I’d gotten.

The only reason this is remotely interesting is to consider that on Monday morning I was still at the very beginning of Chapter 14 – I still have no idea where all the time went up until then. Early Wednesday afternoon I was in a position to start Chapter 22. In terms of wordage, I’d almost doubled the previous progress.

To put that into perspective, a couple of those revised chapters still need some fleshing out – I’ll research that material once I’ve completed this revision and incorporate it in the next – and I didn’t have to completely rewrite a chapter, as I had previously. I’d also cut out the subterfuge plot, even though I’m keeping the Colonel for the different perspective that he brings, and would have reduced the overall word count.

More importantly, word counts don’t mean anything and shouldn’t be taken seriously at this point. I’m just happy I’m making progress and I feel like sharing a statistic that – for once! – shows that I don’t just sit around drinking tea and writing a blog full of excuses why I’ve just sat around drinking tea and writing blog posts.

Up Next…

With any luck, this lung-scraping cough will peter out quickly and I’ll be able to get back to all the work I’m about to schedule for my upcoming week. On the bright side, if it doesn’t, being inside means I’m more likely to crack on with the novel, and if I can maintain the pace, I could be within visual range of the end of this revision by my next post!

That’d be awesome!

One more read through and another revision after that, then I’ll be ready to have someone else look the manuscript over and give me their opinion… …that’s actually quite frightening… It might not be too far away, either, probably early next year.

Right now, I’m about to get back into it with Chapter 23, and everything is changing at Blackwater Manor.

In the meantime, remember the Christmas music will be over before you know it, so have a great week and stay healthy!

Categories: Revision, The Old Man, Time Management, Work Update, Writing