Two in the morning and I'm done. 75888 -- not bad for a first draft at all. And it came together in the end, mostly because I found the notes for the ending. (grin)

I'm much happier now.

At the zoo, of course....

Here it is just after midnight. I have a novel I'm almost finished with, and I think I could have had it done before midnight, but I decided to hold off and get a few words on Saturday's count with it.

The current count is 73,781 -- a bit longer than my usual first drafts, but short by a finished novel standard. Unlike a lot of people, I really enjoy going in and adding material after I get the main story told. And in this case, there is a lot of room for expansion in several areas. I have two good subplot threads with different POVs that I could write out.

But those changes will not come for at least a year. I write the first drafts and then let them sit for a good long time before I look it over again and decide what to add in. I'm too close to it right now.

However, I do have every intention of finishing. I think it won't be much more than 1000 words, if even that much.

So it's time to get to work!

Orchids

My journal will not be updating for several days while they work on the server. At least they sent an email warning people this time! I'll have a whole series of days to upload when they're done.

A year ago I took over running Forward Motion. It wasn't until January that we officially took Holly's name off the site, but I had been running it for several months already. In fact, I had unofficially run it several times before while Holly worked on her books. In this case Holly had just gotten tired of dealing with the Children (and that is not a designation of physical age) who were determined to play games that had nothing to do with writing and everything to do with ego. She enjoyed the others, but the people who were less interested in writing had made it impossible for her to just hang around.

And, of course, Holly had a whole new direction in her writing career starting up, and she had to devote herself to that work. The people who had created trouble at the site took too much of hr time and energy. She had to give it up.

I also remember how close it came to a choice between me taking over the site or closing it down. It took me a couple days to decide, and I think I made the right choice, but it has played havoc with my own writing this last year. I'm finally starting to get the hang of doing the work for the site and still getting my own material scheduled in. My writing count has finally picked back up, I'm glad to say.

So here we are, a year down the road. There have been a number of changes in the site, but nothing that has taken it away from the original vision. Forward Motion is a community to help writers with their work. We have more than doubled in membership since I took over, and we're coming very close to 5000. Last month we had over 8000 unique IPs visit the site. We have several thousand posts a month from active members and good many more lurkers.

Today we began the work of finally transferring the site registration over to me. I also paid the site dues for the upcoming year. The trial period is over, and now it is all officially in my hands. That doesn't mean anything new for the site. It does mean a full acceptance of the responsibility for me. Up until a few hours ago I could have still said just close it down and pretended that it had not been my site anyway.

Now things have changed: My site, my decisions. There are always going to be people who disagree with the way Forward Motion is run. That's the nature of the world. There will always be people who disrupt a site that others enjoy just because it does not suit what they want, and there will be people who disrupt a site because it's not their site and that annoys them. I have learned one important thing over the last few years, and that's just to make a decision on how to deal with them and don't count on reasoning to win anything. I make my decisions in a way that I think will best suit the site.

But there are also ten times as many people who have found something helpful in Forward Motion and who are also willing to help others reach their writing-related goals. Forward Motion is a unique showcase of International cooperation in a field where we are competing for those few publishing spots. We don't have to help each other, you know. We could hoard whatever knowledge about writing we have to ourselves, berate new writers, or give them bad advice (and I have seen a LOT of bad advice out there on other writing sites).

Instead, we have a site dedicated solely to helping other writers become published.

The site is not going to change from that goal or the way in which that goal is presented and enforced. I wish that it didn't have to be enforced, but sometimes such things have to be done.

If you are looking for a site where you can espouse your favorite political views and berate others for theirs, or proclaim your religious beliefs preach to the masses, Forward Motion is not the site for you. However, if you are looking for help to become a better writer, and if you are especially interested in trying to make your way into the world of publishing, I don't think there is a better site on the Internet.

Tiger Wall

Odd days. That's all there is to it. I'm getting my writing done, but not much else. I've been doing it at about 300 words a shot with breaks between to rest my hand. The hand was better yesterday, worse this morning, better tonight.

Farstep Station is very close to being done in the first draft. It should come in close to 70,000 which his not bad at all for me. I'm hitting the final confrontation and I've had to delete several hundred words -- twice! -- because I haven't gotten it right. But I am getting there, and it will get done soon.

Oh, Russ is back home and will need the computer! Time to upload!

Current count is 65,312. I'm getting there!

Southwestern Nebraska

Welcome to August.

Sometime last night I noticed that my left hand ached. Lucky for me I had already done my writing.

It still aches today. Worse, in fact. Obviously just a little strain -- I slipped yesterday and caught myself.

May plan is to write about 300 words a hour between noon and midnight. I'll have a good amount by the end of the day, shouldn't overwork the hand. (Even doing some of the typing with an on-screen keyboard.)

I got my first hour done at 434. I'll even work 'ahead' on some hours so I can take nice long breaks for dinner and such.

It's an inconveninece and I'm very much annoyed -- but I'll get through it.