Five More Days!

until school starts. Wow, where has the summer gone? Hubster was bemoaning the fact that we didn't go anywhere for vacation. Of course, I had to point out that we had just come back from a long weekend in the Ozarks, but he said that wasn't the same thing. Guess his idea of a vacation is hopping on an airplane or sitting for more than four hours in a car.

It used to be my job that held us captive--I worked in hospital and it was first come first served on vacation time. Some of the people put their vacation time over a year in advance and always got it, especially around Christmas. I could understand if you are going out of the country or have a special get-together, but it was always the same people year after year who did this--and some of their kids were in college. It really pissed me off that I never got time off around Christmas, especially the year I had to work Christmas day and I had a three year old.--Yeah, I missed Christmas morning. The preferential treatment pissed me off. Glad I don't have to deal with that political crap anymore!

Sorry, that was a digressive rant. Anyhoo, the Hubster's job was holding us back this year. But we have a nice trip planned for Fall break (Disney World, of course!) and we only have to take the kiddo out of school for two days. YAY!

At first, summer break seemed like the days were stagnant, but now the finish line is in place!

And I seriously need to get my ducks in a row.

With the kiddo in school, one of two things will happen.
1) I will write like a maniac,
2) I will sit on my ass eating bonbons and watching judge (my secret addiction) shows, but I also need to,
3) exercise my BUTT off. Yeah, literally. . .

During BIAW last May, I discovered that I CAN write like a fiend. I had a middle grade novel that I wanted to enter into Delacorte's Yearling contest, deadline was 6-30-09. So I had to have my rough draft finished by the end of May. During the last two weeks of May, I wrote 30K words. Not too shabby. This little story is currently out in the query stage.

I have started book #2, and I'm calling it, The Fast and The Faerieous. I'm only 1000 words in, but I don't really have a clue where it's going. My personal goal is to have the rough draft (30-35K words) finished by the week before vacation in October. Why a week before? Because there is so much to do to get the house, yard, pets, and ourselves ready for vacation. I need a week to take care of the extracurricular stuff.

As if finishing one story isn't enough, I decided to add pressure to myself by writing a suspense, currently called Rosewood Manor. I'm 17.5K words into this story with a goal of hitting 70-75K for my rough draft. During my second draft, I usually tweak and tighten, but also fill out my subplots, deepen the characterizations, yadda, yadda, yadda, which ultimately adds 10-20K to my final count.

Finish two books by the first week of October, eight weeks, is it doable? Heck, yes. I'm not setting a daily writing goal but I know roughly how many words I'll need to write--A LOT. :-)
All I need to do is focus and the words will come. Research will happen while the rough draft ferments. And then I'll tackle the second draft.

Who knows? By the end of the year, I might have two more novels to pimp.

So, for those of you with kids or without them, what's your goal for the rest of the year??

Write on!