Back of the Envelope

Well, I finished the rough draft of the next chapter of Eyes in the Shadow this weekend. That is mainly due to the fact that I've set up a new writing regimen. During my four months of unemployment, I made an effort to write 1,000 words a day, five days a week. It's not rapid compared to the prolific professionals, who recommend that you write at least 2,000 words a day, every day, but I found that even at the rate I was going, my writing had a tendency to outpace my inspiration, and a lot of rambling, unfocused prose made its way into my works.

Now that I've started my new job, I've found I'm having a lot of trouble writing on days that I work. I either have time to write or blog, not both. So I can only really write on weekends. If I only did 1,000 words each on Saturday and Sunday, I couldn't even keep up with Eyes in the Shadow, much less work on anything else, so I've decided to focus on writing at least 2,000 words each day I have off. I think this is a rate I can manage, and by taking the work week off, I give my inspiration time to recover. I don't know how those professionals do it, but my ideas need time to percolate, and I find that if I come back to a storyline after leaving it for a week, I have a much better idea of how to continue. I may do my revising during the week, since I don't want it to cut into my actual writing.

In addition to this, I want to start dividing my effort a bit more, working on not just Eyes in the Shadow, but also the sequel to Fire. I'd like to finish that by the end of the year, which means I need to get through the rough draft in the summer some time. But I also don't want to put off Eyes in the Shadow any more, submitting fillers to the Storyblogging Carnival rather than my continuing story. So, what will probably happen is that the individual chapters of Eyes in the Shadow will become shorter--which means, incidentally, that more of them will be cliffhangers, since I won't have a chance to resolve the immediate situation as I prefer--but they'll appear every other week like clockwork. I'm really not sure whether this will make Doc happy or angry, but, well, it's more for my sake than his. I believe that I'm more than halfway through the story, so the more rapid pace befits the approaching climax. I just wish I knew what that climax was.

I went to a new Bible study last night, one which contained a couple of people I knew from MIT and a lot of new ones. It was a lot of fun, but I didn't get home until 10 pm, so I'm afraid there won't be much blogging today. Maybe I'll post something this evening.

I just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying the new job, moreso than I expected to. I think it helps that I'm doing something very different from my thesis work, and learning as I go, but that I have enough support and independence that I don't feel like I'm doing nothing but learning, which is a problem I've had before.

So I decided to get local phone service. I was just going to use my cell phone, but it doesn't get very good reception where I live, and, hey I have a real job, so I can afford both.

Anyway, I tried calling the number I was given by the landlord, as part of the introductory package. I get the normal automated message. It asks me for the number I'm calling about. Huh? I don't have a number; that's why I'm calling. I stay on the line, hoping it will give me an alternative. Nope, it just repeats the question. Well, I could start pressing buttons hoping to get a Customer Service representative, or I could go online and deal with this there. Guess which one I chose?

You know, if I ever get better cell phone reception here, I think I'll cancel the landline. It's not worth the hassle.