Bowling with Aliens - Finished!

Finished at ~47,000 words, making it about 10k words shorter than I had expected. I am very happy to have finished a month earlier than my goal! It turned out that the closer that I got to the end, the more I could/wanted to write at once. My next project is to due a thorough edit of the Catechumen, which has a completed first draft but which I believe may need some consistency editing.

Bowling With Aliens

I'm at just over 18,000 words, and getting to the part where she actually has to make some decisions, instead of running around like a frightened rabbit. I got to tap slightly on my knowledge of South American exploration (for ruins), so that was fun. I've joined a guild on Gaia that is all about pledging to reach such and such words by the end of the summer. I've pledged 60,000 for this story, because I don't think it will be that long and I can easily do that.

I started a new story, Out of Hell, a few days ago, and it is up to 5,000 words. The story begins three years after swarms of poisonous bats claimed the night for the first time. The many deaths and dangerous nights shut down long-distance travel and broke established commerce. Terese and Leon live on an island with others who have learned how to come together to increase their chances of survival. The two get off to a rocky start until the death of a mutual friend brings to light Leon's desire to leave the island.

Bowling with Aliens - 11600+ words. Reena has yet to realize just how off the beaten path her new friends are.

Bowling With Aliens

Now at 10,000+ words. I added about 1,000 words today, meaning that I managed to write 3,000 words during the school semester. It's not much, but it's a huge accomplishment considering how busy I was with my last semester of school. I have hope for this story as it is one where, whenever I sit down to write for it, I can. There is no sitting in front of the computer screen with my mind wandering to other things. If I can continue to work out the plot ahead of where I'm at with the draft, every thing should continue smoothly, and with any luck at a faster pace.

The tone and purpose of the story is developing nicely. Reena lives in a world that is simply unfit for her intelligence and ambition. It should be unfit for any human being. She finds herself stifled under an oftentimes subtle but always pervasive authority. There will be moral conflict along the lines of "don't bite the hand that feeds you" and "when is violence justifiable?". She will make friends. There will be good times.

I didn't put much time into any thing else creative. Just notes here and there and the occasional RPG post.

"Bowling with Aliens" now at 6000+ words. It's pretty much the only thing I worked on during break, in part because I did a lot of traveling. I'm starting an activity log now, in the hopes that if I see a ton of check marks by "RPG" and not a lot by "writing", I'll feel ashamed and write more. It's not a count of length or time spent, but simply a count of sessions. Even small sessions add up. Wish me luck, as now I have quite a number of ideas for stories that I could potentially be working on. :) Forward with gusto into the new year!