Story #2 – Our hero is not finding a lot of friends today…

I missed posting yesterday  – kinda crazy day and I only got a new chapter written (ch7) for Story #1.  Today I managed to get both some revision work done (Story #1) and a completely new chapter 8 written for Story #2.

Story #2 is, unfortunately for me, becoming quite a bit more interesting than Story #1… not sure why, but it may have to do with the fact that I started on this story a long time back and had much of the story already developed when I switched gears to write Story #1… I was worried that I’d lose momentum if I didn’t tackle Story #1 right away, and I’m still glad I wrote and finished Draft 1, but I have to admit that Story #2 is turning out to be much smoother/easier to write… and the action is easier (maybe that’s because it’s not science fiction, too…)

I’m still going to finish Draft 2 of Story #1 – come too far to put it on the backburner, but I’m finding the words coming easier and faster for Story #2 and each chapter just seems to push the 2000 word limit without any effort.  This is, of course, Draft 1, and I’ll have to go back and do revisions on it as well, but so far I’m very happy with the plot development and timing.  Story #2 involves a 15 year old boy who’s been transplanted into a small town and all the troubles that brings… he’s not finding many friends at school who share his primary hobby and in ch8 he meets some out of town kids who turn out to be game cheaters… and they know he knows!  Trouble brewing…

I also got word today that my non-fiction tech book is being scheduled for a start date of September 20.  We’re negotiating the advance to write it, but they’re telling me the book is a go… very very happy about that.  I still can’t write about the subject just yet, but will try to get permission once the contract is signed.

I also got a Sept 3 due date for the first (of 6) articles on using the iPad in lieu of a laptop.  It’s not a “silver bullet” argument in that an iPad can do everything (it cannot!) but it will be more of an examination of what it takes to try and push the iPad to its limits… article 1 is the intro and the remaining 5 articles will tackle business/home uses of the iPad and see how it stands up to using a laptop.

Today’s scorecard and Progress Bars – (keep in mind that Story #2 jumped to 27% complete because I didn’t get to post yesterday about the 2000+ words for Ch7!)

Novel #1 – Draft 2 Revisions
Ch14 – 11 pages – 2758 words
Book – 124 pages – 30975 words

Novel #2 – Draft 1
Ch8 – 11 pages – 3002 words
Book – 76 pages – 19541 words