Good Friday (not the one before Easter)

Just wanted to write up a quick post. Today was good. Blake finally got me the stuff and the instructions I needed in order to finish up the User Manual. Whew. So I thought I would be able to get it done and still have a couple hours in the afternoon to work on The Cabin, but I was wrong, wrong wrong. Proofreading a 176 page document takes a long time. So I was actually working on it until just about 7PM today, with a break for lunch and for dinner and for a scooter ride in the rain.

So I wasn't able to get anything done on the current novel today, but I still have high hopes for next week. If I can do 5000 words each day, I will hit 45,000 words for the book, and I really think that will probably do it. But I am also open to letting the book go where it needs to. I know the climaxes and the important scenes, but the spaces in between can be as big and detailed as they need to be.

So tomorrow I will pick up my first check for my work for ChartedCourse. That's pretty exciting. It won't be very big, but it's a start. I have done almost 40 hours of work for ChartedCourse by now for the month of February, so that'll be a better check, but it's still not paying the bills.

Gonna keep at it. Gonna write a bestseller. Gonna make this work.

Sorry, it's been a coupla' days...

Well, here I am. Yesterday and today have been very productive, and also good monetarily. I have been working hard on finalizing ChartedCourse's system manual, and it is one step away from finished. Just waiting on some final material from the CEO fellow.

I also have finalized my first draft of Mars Betrayal for Heinle Graded Readers. Woohoo! I will be sending it off tomorrow morning. I sent an invoice for the first $1000 of my advance this evening.

So it has been good. I haven't done any writing for www.helium.com recently, but I hope to tomorrow.

Therefore, tomorrow I will:

1. Send off Mars Betrayal
2. Finalize the system manual for ChartedCourse
3. Write at least two articles for www.helium.com
4. Work on an outline for another graded reader. I have the idea, I just have to work out the plot and characters.

Anyway, I have been putting in about eight hour days these days, and it has been feeling good. I need to keep it up.

I also have been exercising this week, having stopped last week. I need to get it in gear! I am down a couple pounds from the new year, but I need to work harder at it. I am so used to having a late-night snack at around 9 or 10 PM, and there is no doubt that is making it harder for me to lose this poundage. So I am now, having gone on a sugar fast for the last while, eliminating my late-night snack. I really want to lose this stuff.

The writing career is for real. I never really expected to see this kind of success in five months of this, but it is a good thing it has happened. I feel like I am working the way I want to now. I am a little concerned that I won't have enough steady income by the time our cash runs out to support us. But we will keep at it and hope for the best. I think getting The Cabin done and sent out will help with that. I really feel it will sell.

Here is a link to something really neat having to do with www.helium.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TsCTWc1d0I

Yes, that's me in there.

I had an article featured on the front page of Helium today, that was nice. It is a review of an album that I did a while back. The review, not the album. I don't do albums.

So that's it for now. Exciting eh?