Wordage Report

You know, I might have to rethink this whole updating on Sunday thing. It kind of sneaks up on a person, you know what I mean?

Last week I did really well with the editing, not so well on the new words, and held steady on the blog posts. Just when I start to get comfortably settled into a routine, something always comes along to upset the apple cart. In this case it was my daughter going to Vancouver for the week leaving her hubby and I to look after the 15 month old baby. I only had three days of full-time babysitting, but as a lovely parting gift my granddaughter gave me her cold which knocked me right on my butt for a couple of days.

Blog Posts (not counting this one)
2807 words total
I was up by 500 words in the blog posts last week. I suppose if I was really anal about such things I could go back and see if it was one post in particular that had the increase or if it was more or less spread evenly across them all. But in the grand scheme of things, I’m sure it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is I got all four posts done and up in time. :-)

New Ideas
I have a story scenario replaying itself in my head (as I usually do) and I keep refining it and trying out different paths for it to go in, but I’m not at the point where I want to commit it to paper (or computer screen) yet.

Editing
82 pages total
There’s something to be said for a three hour nap time (for the baby, not me). I really smoked it on the whole editing thing. Not only did I manage to edit a respectable 23 pages on An Elemental Earth, and I finished the first edit on the adventure/mystery. Go me!

I always do at least two passes when I edit for someone else, so I’ve got one more pass to make before it goes back to its author. I was hoping that I’d be able to get it back to its author by now, but I had some unexpected company drop in for the weekend. But tomorrow’s a holiday here in Canada so we’ll see ...

New Words
@ 1,000
Now, you may have noticed that my word count on the side bar jumped by about 9,000 words. So why am I only crediting myself with 1,000? Because I wrote 50,000 words of Wandering Wizards before I finished Lucky Dog, the book that came before it. And apparently there were things that happened in Lucky Dog that drastically change what I have happening in Wandering Wizards. So at this point I’m more editing/rewriting than actually writing, but these are the only new words I’ve got, so there you go.

I’ve come to a big section that’s included in the word count that has to be totally changed. There’s this big, long-winded explanation of who the heroine’s parents are and what’s really going on, and then the heroine’s reaction to it all. However, someone already let the truth slip out during Lucky Dog so now that whole section has to be rewritten/cut. I’m pretty sure that next week my word count will actually go down once the dust settles.

Once again, here’s an excerpt from Wandering Wizards:

“I guess there’s nothing left but for us to be on our way,” Kaelan said, rising from the table. The others followed suit and then trailed after Aracelia as she led the way to the courtyard where their mounts were waiting, grabbing their personal gear on the way by.

“Holy ---” Howard stopped in his tracks.

“What?” Ellen asked, almost running into him. She peered around him. “Wow, now that’s what I call a horse!”

“Those aren’t just horses,” Sebastian said, a note of wonder in his voice. “Those are elven-steeds!”

Ellen was not one of those girly-girls who had a thing for horses, but even she had to admit the animals were magnificent. They were taller than draft horses, but not as heavily set. They had long, thick manes and tails and there was an unexpected intelligence in their eyes.

“They look like Friesians, only . . . bigger,” Howard said. There were two dappled grey and two black. He went up to one of the greys and stroked its nose. “Hello beautiful.”

Ellen looked at him with a mixture of amusement and surprise. “I never knew you were into horses,” she said.

“I took riding lessons as a child - my mother thought it would make me more manly - and ever since I’ve always wanted a horse of my own,” Howard replied, still stroking the velvety nose.

Ellen eyed them as well, although not quite as appreciatively. “So, do these things come with a step ladder?”

Don’t forget to come back Friday for Fun With Quotes!