Cold.

Yesterday, I wrote the first 2,478 words on Red Delicious. So, numerically – speaking strictly in terms of word count, quantity – it was an exceptional goddamn day. The last sentence of the day was:

In retrospect, leaving him alive was merely the latest boneheaded move in Quinn’s Little Golden Book of Boneheaded Moves.

Yes, I began a novel on Groundhog Day.

When I'm writing a novel there is a panic that I'm constantly dodging. I can only think of the thing in pieces. Small pieces. Pieces the size of what can be done in a day. Sometimes, pieces the size of what can be done in an hour. If I ever allowed myself to look at the whole, I'd lock up and stop writing. The whole is terrifying. And this is another – and possibly the main – reason I don't write outlines and drafts and such. One word at a time. One day at a time. Baby steps. Fuck, if I set out thinking, "I'm going to write a 70k-100k word novel, and there will be two or three drafts, and then I'll actually listen to the editor and do the rewrites" – if I did that – I'd never have begun that first book, twenty years ago.

Day 2, and I already have 1,378 words in the word bank.

Last night, we played far too much Rift.

Level 55,
Aunt Beast