8,062 Words

"Every writer I know has trouble writing." -
Joseph Heller

Oh, well, THAT'S a relief. Sometimes you think it's just you. This hasn't been an easy week (are ANY of them easy?), but somehow I managed to get 8,062 words written. That amounts to 39 pages and almost the complete first three chapters of my new book.

Some of it was written at lunchtime, while sitting in my car and eating lunch in the park. Some of it was written in the late hours of the night, some during the first hours of morning. Some of it was written while sipping on Diet Pepsi; some of it while drinking coffee. Some of it was written on the treadmill at the gym, though neither pen and paper nor my laptop was available. Some of it was written during a brisk walk in the woods, when certain parts of the story became clearer to me with each step.

I'd be a lot further along if I hadn't kept clicking on the little "e" button at the bottom of my screen and ended up Internet surfing every couple of days. I hate that. It's okay to goof around on the 'Net, but not when I want to devote what precious little time I can to delving into this story.

But I forgive myself for that and move on. As writers, we can't dwell on yesterday because we'll lose the opportunity that is today to work.

I don't know if all writers go through this, but I had a couple of false starts with this particular book. Then I realized who the story belonged to, that I had the wrong hero and heroine. That makes all the difference in the world. Also, this is one of those stories that kept brewing for some time, and it's one I want to share with my readers.

Not to give away too much, let's just say that this one is a sci-fi romance, though there'll be some fantasy elements in it, as well. Besides this being my first sci-fi, there's something else about this book that sets it apart from my other recent works. For right now that's a secret, but I'll be revealing it in a future post, hopefully not long from now. That has also made a difference in the approach to this latest work-in-progress.

By this time next week, I hope to be posting the new word count, placing it over 20,000 words.

That's if I don't keep clicking on that little blue "e"!