I didn’t think this week was going well, but looking at my spreadsheet now I see that it’s the best week yet. I’ve written a stunning 17K this week. This brings the monthly total to 51K, and More Than Anything to 59K. We’re getting somewhere now. New characters are being introduced, and I particularly like the one I just introduced. Like literally just. He’s in the scene I stopped writing to do this blog post.
I’m really excited about writing lately, even if everything else is shit. I won’t go into it though, because that’s personal stuff, and I keep this blog for my writer persona only. Just know that I’m the most happiest when I can buckle down with my characters and bring their story forward. There’s nothing quite like the feeling I get when I can concentrate fully and the words just write themselves.
So I’ve already reached 50K this month. I have the same goal for next month, because that’s NaNoWriMo. Anyone doing NaNo this year? I’m cheating, since I’m continuing MTA. I’ve put a deadline for November 30th for it, and Scrivener helpfully told me today I only have to write 1.1K every day to reach it. I think I’m going to finish it before, but then I’ll move right over to the short story I’ve got planned, and maybe even the next novel in the series if I write quickly.
[title size=”2″]On reading[/title]
I did more reading this week than I did last week. I tried my hand on Jordan Castillo Price’s first PsyCop book, Amongst the Living as well as the short companion piece, Thaw. I’m not much for anything that isn’t contemporary lately (and by that I mean all year), but I really did like this book. Victor was a very likeable character and I didn’t feel it was particularly paranormal. Sure, he could see and talk to ghosts, but the trouble in this first book was that they weren’t communicating with him. Still, I really loved Victor’s voice, and I bought the second novella. I read a short story I did not like, but I want to keep this part of the blog post about books I like, so I won’t mention that.
I also finished Marie Sexton’s A to Z today, which I started reading last week, or something? I read this book once before, but that’s years ago. I am so glad I read it again, because this around I could appreciate it a lot better than that first time around. This book rang true to me, because I recognised myself in both characters. In Zach, I recognised the cluelessness when it comes to what literature and films are really about. What I see or what I read is what I get, I hardly ever manage to go deeper than that. Quote from the novel: “You want to know what I think it was about? Aliens.” This sentence is so me. In Angelo, I recognised myself in his need to be private, to be by himself, to have his own space. I need that too–I need my space.
So this book got a full five stars from me this time around, because I felt connected to these characters. They felt real to me. It was all realistic. They had a good ending that fit well for them. Now I’m on to reading their next book, which I also read before, but it’s years ago and I can’t properly remember it. I am looking forward to discovering it all over again though, like I did with this novel!