TWIB Notes

This Week In Blogging's Notes!

Okay, so the title is originally take from a show called This Week in Baseball and they had a segment called TWIB notes. I didn't figure anyone would get the reference. Maybe Matt or Cullen...

It took about 5 days for Kim to post a comment about my lack of blogging. I knew it'd be less than a week, but was unsure exactly how long it would take her. Now I know.

Of course, my silence was no grand experiment. I simply decided to take the week off, mostly, as a reward for doing so well the last two months and didn't bother to blog about it. I also found it to be an exhaustive week. I am not enjoying the rewriting process. If it were edits, I'd enjoy the efforts much more because it's a sign of progress. These rewrites makes me feel like I'm starting over from scratch.

In reality, I am. The rewrite of the first chapter recycled mere sentences. It was 4500 words of completely new material that I had already written. Couple that disenfranchisement with my slowly growing exhaustion for the writing process as a whole and motivation has been low.

I doped up on caffeine all week and rewrote the second chapter. I did manage to save about 800 words, give or take. Scattered sentences mostly, but a few (not even requiring a full hand to count so few) paragraphs. The chapter ended with 5000 words, so I did manage over 4000 in new writing. A respectable week, but I really had to drag myself through it.

That's the main reason I didn't bother blogging. I just didn't care to write about it all, though this was potentially a mistake. I found myself looking for things to do all week, the least notable of which was all the napping. Taking so much caffeine has it's prices. I don't sleep well for long stretches and thus, I crash often in an effort to recoup the lost sleep.

I did manage to practice my reading aloud skills. I recorded myself reading Chapter One. I have a long way to go in that department. I don't relax enough or even breath enough while reading. I'll keep practicing. I have plenty of time before I need to start releasing any of this stuff. In fact, I can take as long as I want.

I'm looking forward to finishing the third chapter this week. With all the junk getting cut out, my first four chapters has become three. A none too unexpected byproduct of numerically cutting 8000 words. I am hopeful that as much as half of this last chapter will be salvageable. There are a number of things I liked in the presentation, so maybe it only needs more tweaking and less revision. We'll see over the next few days.

As Kim was attempting to poke my blog with a stick to check for survivors, she let me know that she was joining the blogosphere with her new blog: http://pollytickedoff2008.blogspot.com/

It is of a political nature for conservative women. She is the only friend I have that falls into such a demographic, so I doubt an endorsement from me will provide her with any readers, but I have done my duty in returning the shout out.