Musings & Thoughts for Saturday, April 22, 2023, or: Weekend Update, Part the First

Wowie zowie. It’s already afternoon here in Lithia on Saturday, April 22, 2023! Where did my morning go, and why did it morph into the afternoon so quickly?  It appears like I woke up a little while ago, wandered into the kitchen, brewed (and then drank) two cups of coffee, then came back in here to kill time on Facebook, watch some Farron Balanced videos on YouTube, read random news stories on MSN News and my Bing homepage, and “not work” on The New Story.

Of course, even though I will stick to my weekend plans and not add any new words to my story (caveat: unless I get a particularly vivid image or even line of dialogue in my brain and can’t shake it off) either today or tomorrow, I will do some housekeeping chores and look over what I have on my “master file” for the work-in-progress (WIP) for typos, omitted words that I meant to write but didn’t write, and check to see if what I wrote yesterday isn’t, well, shitty.

Because I worked on the story for quite a while yesterday (I stopped writing shortly before midnight), I am a bit further along than I thought I’d be at this point, even taking into account that the last time I wrote a complete, unabandoned work of fiction I wrote it in three days (I had the advantages of having at least an old college CRW-2001 assignment as a starting point, no Internet to distract me, and, of course, I was only 35 when I wrote the first draft of Reunion). I’m obviously not going to write the WIP in three days – I’ve already been writing for a week and I’m only on the first chapter.

Nevertheless, this is where I stand with The New Storyon this lovely spring day in the Tampa Bay area:

No. of Pages (including a rudimentary title page and one for two epigraphs): 13

No. of Words: 4,509

Prologue: Six pages. First draft status –  done.

Chapter One: Three pages. First draft status – Chapter title given; main characters introduced; Moonglow club established; one scene is done. Chapter first draft status –  (obviously) incomplete.

I am, of course, standing firm on the issue of not working on the story – except to make minor nips and tucks here and there – on weekends. I’m tired, for one thing, and I also need to take time out to relax, do some “self-care,” and not be obsessed with plot points, clever banter, or the Almighty Word Count.

And, on that note, I’ll take my leave of you, Dear Reader. I’ve got some serious relaxation to do. Or, at least, try doing.