Novel Stats

Uncanny

Today's Word Count: 419 words, 25.6k total

Excerpt:
Another dream. There was screaming, and Daniel was running furiously down a hallway. He saw a door at the end of the hall, the light from the outside streaming through, and he put his head down and crashed through it. He was looking out over a large field. There were flag poles and buildings scattered throughout the field. Except for a few cars in the distance, the place had a distinctively aged feel—the buildings were made of old, slatted wood with red brick chimneys, and there were black buckets filled with sand on the wall next to him, presumably for a fire.

Well, I'm off on vacation for about two weeks, so I probably won't be posting much. As a matter of fact, I probably won't be writing much, either. Which will probably be a good thing, since my creative juices aren't exactly flowing right now. Time for a refuel, I think.

Until then! Onward!

Novel Stats

Uncanny

Today's Word Count: 976 words, 25k total

The Good:
“Help you?” the man asked between coughs.
“Fill me in, please. I’ve only gotten chatter so far.”
The man took off his hat and put it over his face, and then gestured back to the truck stop. “You can see for yourself.”
“I can see the fire. What happened inside?”
“We count thirteen bodies so far. Why they didn’t just run out is beyond me. I’ve never seen nothing like this before.”
“What caused it?”
“It sure wasn’t a grease fire. The whole thing went up like it was soaked in gasoline. Just like that.” The man snapped his fingers for emphasis.

Daily Stumbling Block:
Monday Blues? Holiday Blues? That must be the case. I find myself writing future scenes with a lot more ease then the scenes in the present. Maybe this is the boring middle part?

Novel Stats

Uncanny

Today's Word Count: 967 words, 23.8k total

The Good:
Daniel and Jason stood without speaking in the middle of the clearing. After a while, Daniel straightened up and walked to the edge of the trees, his back turned to Jason. Jason waited. Daniel turned suddenly and hunted the gun out of the bushes and clumsily stuffed it into his pants.
“We need to find the other, then,” Daniel said, almost to himself, “and bring him to Ed. And then he will have no choice—he will have to do what he is meant to.”

Daily Stumbling Block:
Motive, motive, motive! My characters lack motive, and spring into things simply because it suits the plot. I need to go back and rebuild the characters, and give them the proper motivation for why the do the things they do.

Random Thought:
I've been on an Internet fast (except for posting to this blog, of course), and it's much harder to come up with random thoughts without it. Which leads me to wonder if we were better off without it before.
I guess that'll have to be random enough for now.

Novel Stats

Uncanny

Today's Word Count: 1470 words

The Good:
The doors opened onto a hallway much different than the one she had left. There were paintings on the walls, fancy tapestries, and smooth oak baseboard running the length of the hardwood floor. She stepped off of the elevator, turned and gasped. A man stood to her left; though he was as still as night, he had frightened her all the same.

Daily Stumbling Block:
I didn't feel like finishing the scene I was in, so I skipped ahead and wrote a future one. I hope that's okay.

Prayer Request:
A friend of mine sent over a prayer request. He's from Oregon, but the man in need of prayer, Seth, lives near Sacramento. He was in an auto accident and it looks like they are struggling to keep him alive. He has a wife who is four months pregnant, and two daughters, 6 and 3. He's in his late 20's.
This struck me particularly hard, mainly because of the similarities between me and this man. I am in my late 20's; and I also have a wife and two daughters, though they are a little younger. It's just amazing that, as I sit here typing, there is a man fighting for his life, and a family close to suffering an unutterable loss. So pray for a miracle, that this man might be spared and dwell with his family for many years.

Novel Stats

Uncanny

Today's Word Count: 1,520 words, 22.5k total

The Good:
The door in front of Daniel opened and the man got out, a frantic look in his eye. He swept past Daniel, knocking him back onto the car, and then he was gone. Daniel turned and ran after him. He swept into the trees and was quickly disoriented. There was no light among the trees, and the noise of the highway seemed to come from every direction. Then he saw the light, shining against the darkness surrounding it, calling him forward. He ran to it, stumbling awkwardly through the limbs and roots and branches. Finally he came to a small clearing, where the moonlight spilled down and illuminated two figures in front of him. One of the figures whipped around—he was carrying a gun, and he raised it threateningly as Daniel approached.

Daily Stumbling Block:
This stuff is going to need some serious editing. I mean, serious.

Random Thought:
Well, our strollers left from China today. Which means we can expect them in about four or five weeks. For those readers who don't know, we are currently starting an online business selling UK-designed strollers, manufactured in China. We hope to have a website soon. Your good friend and mine, Levi Nunnink, is working on it, and it looks spectacular so far.

Onward!

Novel Stats

Uncanny

Today's Word Count: 1,203 today, 21 k total

The Good:
“You left so suddenly.” Nicolas reached out with his mind, but, as ever, Starla was impassable. “And things were going so well.”
Starla remained silent. Nicolas sighed and lifted his hand and Starla began to writhe in pain, her insides burning. Nicolas turned his head away sharply and began to pace. Flames poured from his fingers and met above him in a circle, a fiery halo.

Daily Stumbling Block:
Still just writing what comes to mind. I'm at the point in my story when my characters begin to meet and interact, and I don't want to sell these scenes short. The story has picked up nicely as they begin to come together.

Random Thought:
Right at this moment I am eating yogurt with bits of granola that I personally crunched up. See, I'm a big "together" eater. There are two kinds of people in this world: "together" eaters and "apart" eaters. They're easy enough to spot, especially during a big meal like Thanksgiving. The "apart" eater takes a bite of mashed potatoes, then a sip of milk, and then some turkey, et cetera. A "together" eater grabs a forkful of turkey, already doused with gravy, steers it into the potatoes, picking up what he can, takes a bite, and then takes a quick bite of his bread, which never leaves the appropriate hand during the course of the meal.
Which one, might I ask, are you?

Novel Stats

Uncanny

Today's Word Count: 2,146 words, 19.8k total

The Good:
Starla flung off her seatbelt and scratched at the door handle. Michelle leaned over and grabbed a fistful of Starla’s hair, pulling her back.
“Ah…” Starla reared around and slapped Michelle with all of her strength. Michelle’s head snapped back, and Starla pulled away from her grip. Michelle reached under her seat, her hand dancing over the floor. Starla cried out and kicked open the door and then the gun was forced into her back. She stopped and stretched her hands out to either side. Michelle put her chin on Starla’s shoulder, her heavy breaths warm and moist against her ear.
“I’m not going to lose you.”
And Starla knew what she had to do. Just this once, Starla thought. Or I’m never going to make it out alive.

Daily Stumbling Block:
I'm forsaking all stumbling blocks for now and just writing as fast as I can. I'm tired of spending twenty minutes on one sentence. So, for now, I am writing what comes to mind, and, as far as I know, it's going okay.

Random Thought:
You can download a picture of a dog smoking a cigarette, and the total size of the file is about 3 megabytes. My story, the one I have been bleeding and sweating over for many months, is about 100 kilobytes. 1 megabyte is about 1000 kilobytes (actually 1024 kilobytes). So that means my story is 1/3,000 the size of a photo of a dog smoking a cigarette.
My conclusion is: size doesn't matter. But you are welcome to make your own.

Novel Stats

Uncanny

Today's Word Count: 870 Words, 17.6k total

The Good:
Ed imagined himself getting on the train, leaving the station in Nevada, taking the bus to the hospital, and resuming his watch next to Martha’s bed. He would have nothing to give now, but everything to lose: the sharpness in Martha’s eyes, her pale face thinning into shadow, her frail body evaporating under the sheets. There were some men, Ed thought, who could stand by and watch that happen.
But he could not.

Daily Stumbling Block:
I'm stumbling now with the simple things, prose and sentence structure. Seems all of my sentences want to begin with "He" or "the". I guess I'll roll with it for now...

Random Thought:
Every so often, I'm going to present a Richard Dawkins quote for us all to digest. Dawkins is probably the most vitriolic critic of religion and specifically Christianity, doggedly non-intellectual ideas to a man of such intellectual prowess, I presume. I think his quotes are very interesting, and tend to raise more questions, perhaps more appropriate than the ones he is attempting to answer. So, without further adue, your annual or monthly or bi-weekly Dawkins quote (I haven't decided the frequency at which they'll occur. I suppose it depends on what frequency he chooses to serve up these juicy quotes):

"It is almost as if the human brain were specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinism, and to find it hard to believe.."

From his own website. All I can say is, hmm...

Novel Stats

Uncanny

Today's Word Count: 1,073, 16.8k total

The Good:
“Hello?” Martha sounded tired or drugged. It could have easily been both.
“Martha, it’s Ed.”
“Oh, Ed…” Martha’s voice trailed off, as if she were struggling to remember if she knew someone by that name. Then her voice came back, a little stronger than before. “Oh, Ed, what are you getting yourself into?”
“Martha, I have to do this. You have to understand.”
“All I understand is that I’m lying in this hospital bed, and my husband is not here by my side.”
Ed could see her there, alone, surrounded by the cold sterility of the hospital room. The tears began to trickle from his eyes and down his cheeks. “There’s still hope, Martha.”
“Ed, did you think I was going to live forever? I’m forty-eight years old, and we’ve been married almost thirty of those years. Marvelous, glorious years. I wouldn’t trade in a one.”

Daily Stumbling Block:
I felt pretty good today, as evidenced by the word count. I'd say the main stumbling blocks today are the ones so often present in all of life: motivation and discipline.

Random Thought:
In world news, "World chess champion Vladimir Kramnik lost his final game in a match against computer program Deep Fritz on Tuesday, ceding a hard-fought Man vs. Machine series 4-2."
Me, I'm not going to be worried until a computer beats a man at Chutes and Ladders.

Novel Stats

Uncanny

Today's Word Count: 304 words, 15.8k total

The Good:
Since Levi insists that I post something, here you go:

He had experienced dreams like this before, but none had left him with such a sense of urgency. His fingers and toes felt as if they had been dipped in flame. Their pain receded only when he stood up and began to walk and then run down the marina. His feet slapped loudly on the old slats of wood, and his breath streamed behind him in a long plume.

Daily Stumbling Block:
You know how some days, as a writer, you just don't feel very inspired? Today is one of those days. Maybe it's the Monday blues. The small word count speaks for itself.

Random Thought:
If "uncanny" means eerie or keen, shouldn't "canny" mean plain and dull? Why does it mean shrewd or knowing? Shouldn't they be the opposite? Ah, the wonders of the English language...

Novel Stats

Uncanny

Daily Word Count: 920 today, 15.4k total

The Good:
Umm, nothing worth putting down today, thanks. I know what you're thinking; 900 words and he's too embarrassed to post any of it? Yes.

Daily Stumbling Block:
Same problem as before, though now I am finally coming up with some character connections. May have to completely redo this middle section, but for now, it's getting done.

Random Thought:
My wife packs me a Care Bears fruit snack everyday for lunch. I know you're jealous.