Today was the first day in the new writing schedule, and look:

Total word count, Swan Sister: 8,771
Total words today: 853

I started to write at 8:20. Liam woke up at 9:00, effectively ending the session. But before I stopped I’d managed to successfully kill off the title character, as set forth in my outline. So that’s the proposal done, and the death done. I can check two major things off my list, and the story can continue to advance. I’m really settling into the style more comfortably too, which is a relief after having it dissolve through the typed words like mist whenever I thought I’d hit it.

Mind you, today’s success may have had something to do with how long I was awake before I sat down to write. I woke up at 5:30 AM, thanks to a wretched cold that has ambushed me and taken my sinuses and my throat hostage. So I was very awake, and had been for some time, and had had time to think about how to handle the scene (plus draw a map to clear up what was where, which had to be done as well). We’ll see if it all still works when I sleep in till sevenish like I usually do.

But establishing a writing schedule again is a Good Thing, not just for my creative sanity but because it looks like I’m dusting off and rewriting the old spellcrafting through the seasons proposal that was “nice but not now” when I originally did it a couple of years back, as well as drawing up an idea for a series (not all by me, of course, but I’d like to do one title for it). It’s so very nice to be asked, “What do you feel like writing?”

How long has it been since I’ve posted a book update? Long enough that I’m practically turning somersaults as I write this.

Total word count, Swan Sister: 7,911
Total words today: 3,071

I love Mousme with much love, for having her here while I wrote meant that I dragged my clunky little laptop out of the closet instead of working with the desktop, recopied my files to a second floppy that worked in the laptop, and wrote all day instead of fiddling around on the internet or with photo files or music or other shiny things that distract me.

It was Liam’s day at his grandma’s, and I deliberately planned a writing jam so that I couldn’t do anything else but write — no errands, no naps, no kicking about. I wrote/thought about/planned/discussed the novel all day. Between elevenish and fiveish I was a writer again, even during the breaks for food and discussion and phone calls and visitors. And ye gods, it worked. I almost doubled my existing word count. I wrote the proposal scene that I couldn’t write until I had at least two straight hours to handle it, and now things are moving in the story. I now have writing momentum, too. I want to keep going.

All I needed was an uninterrupted day doing it and the discipline of someone with me to get that scene written in its entirety. Now I think I can count on the hourish nap Liam has in the early morning to keep writing this book scene by scene. Instead of doing the correspondence/newsreading thing when I turn the computer on, I’ll write as much as I can for as long as his nap lasts, and I’ll handle e-mail and such during his second shorter nap. I will unplug the modem so that I can’t just hop online and lose half an hour. I may go back to writing on the laptop in another room, if that’s what gets the job done. It doesn’t matter how slow the laptop is if it’s not used for anything except word processing. The smaller regular keyboard is a bit hard to use after using the ergonomic board exclusively for a few years, but it’s a challenge I can handle.

Today has been such a blessing, and such a gift.

Although, I’d forgotten how much tea I go through during a writing jam. I haven’t had this much caffeine running through my body in almost two years.