Writey McWriterson is back

Finally, a day where I accomplished a substantial block of writing, despite my many attempts to procrastinate. Since writing is essentially boring to anyone but the writer, I figured anyone reading this post might be more interested to know what I did during breaks to avoid going back to work distract myself for a few scant minutes at a time.

I needed to get in a holiday mood this morning, because my WIP takes place three days before Christmas. It was in the upper seventies here today, and sunny. Not exactly getting me in the mood to write this particular tale. I hauled out my Jack Skellington mug and made some hot tea, thinking it might help the mood along. While it brewed, I cleaned the kitchen a bit, and then found a great project to stall for a while occupy the few minutes before I had to get to work.

We keep a flower pot full of pens and pencils on the counter by the phone. It was overflowing with crayons, markers, and all manner of things, and you couldn't get half the pens into the pot anymore. I dumped it out on the counter, and tested each pen before placing it carefully back. By the time I finished that important task, I was almost done with the tea, and figured I should get to work.

I threw out about a dozen non-functional pens, and still the pot's full to bursting.

My next distraction came a few hours later. The kid has a little stretchy man made of yellow rubber, and she was throwing it up into the air in the living room. It stuck to the ceiling, about fifteen feet up.

He's the little speck in the middle of the shot. Sorry it's hard to see, but it was about ten feet above my head.

The Helper Monkey got the broom and retrieved the little guy for us.

Safe and sound...for now

Of course, this prompted a round of running around the house finding other surfaces he might stick to. You see, he's not sticky, he won't stick to the painted walls, or the fridge, or the stove, or the light fixtures, or anything else in the house. So we started throwing him up against the ceiling again.

On the ceiling of the hall

This, as you might imagine, was insanely fun. We found a ceiling we could reach ourselves, without the Helper Monkey's assistance, and spent the next ten minutes making him stick, before knocking him down with a broom again.

All this highly intellectual activity was exactly what I needed to inspire me to go back to work. Actually, it was the shame at how hard we'd been laughing at Sticky Yellow Guy's trauma that eventually drove me back to work.

Nevertheless, I still managed to get quite a bit accomplished today. I'm stunned how this project is turning out to be completely different than the last book in this series, just as that one was completely different from the first. This one is much more of a mystery, with my two main characters following a bunch of twisty-turny clues to solve the crime. I'm dashing everything down in my usual Pantser fashion, but I know this book is going to require a lot more in the editing department than the others. Continuity is a bigger issue here than it was in the others, since it's freaking hard to keep track of who knows what about the mystery. Can't have anyone reveal something too soon, and can't have people oblivious to something they should have known already. Gah! So confusing! So in addition to all the new words I've written today, I've spent an inordinate amount of time skipping back in the narrative to make sure the continuity is....continuous. Ahem.

Back to work again, while the word factory is still open for business in my brain.

Words: 28,261
Pages: 93

Afterthought: What's with the new Blogger interface? I'm lost. Please bear with me until I get used to it.

 After-Afterthought: I finally named my WIP. It's called BLACK SHEEP, for future reference. I hate naming my novels. In fact, I'm thinking of renaming DRAGON HUNTER. I was thinking RUNNING DOWN THE DRAGON sounded better. Any thoughts?