Welcome Back

Okay. So much for the productive summer.

Between class, work, and various social obligations to family and friends, I have not been able to maintain my writing goals during these summer months.

That's okay. It was all important stuff. I'm closer to graduation, farther from debt, and I've reconnected with  those I've been absent from for the past semester (most of them, at least). Overall, it's a net-positive summer, even if it hasn't been productive for writing.

But now the summer is drawing to an end and it's time for me to buckle down to finish out the year strong.

This coming week I will be attending the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Reno, Nevada. It's going to be first con, and I'm really excited. George R.R. Martin will be there, and Brandon Sanderson, and Lou Anders, and Writing Excuses, and Robin Hobb, and Kim Stanley Robinson, and Pat Rothfuss, and so many others. They're going to be presenting on topics of all kinds, from game design, to world-building, to film adaptation, and so on. Oh, and there're also plays, and films, and readings, and signings, and dances, and other shows and stuff.

Wow. I'm excited. Starts wednesday. Goes til Sunday. I return monday; I leave for school on tuesday. Busy couple of weeks here...

Once I return to school, I'll be starting in on three goals, both personal and professional.

On the personal front, I'm going to be reconnecting with the friends I haven't seen since last Fall; and a part of that will be through RPG campaigns. (Side note: I'm really looking forward to these campaigns this year. It's been far too long since I've run a campaign, and they're wonderful social events for me to practice my on-the-fly storytelling.)

On the professional side of things, I need to begin preparing for graduation. Everything should line up for me to finish school on time, and I'm hoping to have a job waiting for me when I'm done.

On both ends, I'm planning to rewrite and revise Runic in order to prepare it for submission to publishers in January. I'm estimating the final length of the book to be between 90k and 120k words. Which means I'll need to write at least 1300 words each day while I'm at school if I'm to get it done at all. If I want time to revise, I'll probably want to write between 2500 and 3000 each day. But we'll see if I have time after fulfilling all of my other daily goals.

I'm confident that I can get Runic ready for submission by January. I just need be consistent in my efforts...again.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this is going to give me enough to finish my year of words (for those of you who forgot, the goal was 500k words). I'm still going to try for it, but...well, my prospects don't look good. And I don't want to exhaust myself or depress myself by holding myself to a commitment that I can no longer keep. *sigh* It's disappointing, but a likely necessity.

One final note, I'm going to be offering frequent updates from my trip this week. Today and the next few days are going to be spent in the San Francisco area here, and then Wednesday through Sunday will be a flurry of fan excitement streaming forth from WorldCon. (Excitement!) Following that, I'll be back at school and back to work. And hopefully I'll be able to continue offering updates then as well.

Until then, thank you for your time.