So...a little late getting this one out the gate. This was written in early June, and it's now August. What can I say? It's been a busy summer...
This time last year, I headed off to my little Goldeneye to the north (see Behind the Scenes of THE HOLLOW-HEARTED novella to see what the heck I’m talking about—that no, it isn’t a rad Nintendo 64 game based on one of my Top 2 James Bond films) to start writing Book Four of the overall Odyssium Series, THE HOUSE OF FALLING RAIN. If you recall, I had a monstrous time crunch imposed by the impending arrival of our magical dumpling of infinite screams and poops coming into the house last year. This forced me to write the first draft of Book Four in just over three months. And a good thing too, as that first draft has sat untouched since then. While the baby indeed has gobbled up the lion’s share of free time available, I’ve surprisingly managed to get a few things done since. Most of it’s been prepping for my first convention, MSP ComiCon, and random bits and bobs here and there. Speaking of the ComiCon, I probably should do a post-Con blog about that little adventure…
Back to the subject…it’s that time of year again. “Vacation” looms. I use quotes around the word “vacation,” because it’s been a loooooong time since I’ve taken a week off and not worked. Time off equals opportunity to write in vast quantities, so that’s what I’ve done for the last several years, and that’s what I’ll be doing next week. Last year, the challenge was to complete the first draft of Book Four in the space of a few months. This time, the challenge is to write the entire first draft of the new short story in less than three days. I’ll be heading up on Tuesday, and the rest of the family will be up Friday evening. That leaves me two full days of (hopefully) uninterrupted writing time. Considering I was regularly churning out 3,500 words a day last summer, that means I have to hit that quota this week and then some. I’m aiming for the short story to sit somewhere between 8-10K words total, but considering I almost invariably overshoot my word count goals, things could get interesting.
I won’t bore you with the several reasons why I’m writing a short story instead of getting personal edits on Book Four done. I will say that the short is just one of those things that demanded to be written while the ideas were still hot embers glowing out of the infinite darkness that is the cavernous hollow of my mind. If it all shakes out well, this short story will be quite a departure from the series norm, and in a structural sense, at least, it’ll be an homage to one of my favorite short stories.
After it’s done, I’ll be back to work on Book Four with my edits, followed by the mandatory professional scrubbing for good measure. The goal is to have both Book Four and the short to release by the end of the year. At the moment, it appears as though some sort of divine intervention might be required for that to happen, but that’s what I’m shooting for anyway.
Make sure you check back next time! Summer’s here, so I’ll be grilling!