WEEKLY STATUS REPORT # 5

When someone told me as I wrote “I Kissed a Ghost” that I’ll be writing four different items at the same time in the future, I’d have laughed in their face. But now look at me, I’m actually doing precisely what she told me; and with everything falling into place, I keep on surprising myself as to the progress I’m making on each one.  Well here we are again, another week has gone by and it’s time for me to report on my progress on each of my four projects.

I’m beginning to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel for “His Darkest Secret.” In the past week I’ve written another chapter consisting of 5 pages and approximately 1,500 words, which bring the total for this endeavor to a total of 38 Chapters, 252 pages with approximately 73,060 words. According to my “mental countdown,” I estimate I’ll now need about two more chapters before I can type that elusive final period for my manuscript and begin the long process of self-editing.  

My anthology of Flash Fiction is up to 87 items with 4 new ones having been written in the past week. This leaves me with only 13 more items to write for my goal of 100 Flash Fictions.

For my still untitled YA Fantasy this past week I completed writing Chapter 2 and wrote its third chapter bringing the total to 3 Chapters, 11 pages and approximately 3,275 words.

For my final project, “It Had All Been a Game”, I’ve completed Chapter 3 with a total of 4 pages and more than 1,140 words being written; which brings the total for my efforts here to a total of 3 Chapters, 24 pages, and approximately 6,925 words.

If for any reason you feel frustrated by not being able to write a lot each day remember: If you can only type two pages a day [500 words]; you be able to finish a 240 page novel [about 60,000 words] in four months. Look at the progress I’m making each week for an example of what I mean.

FIVE SENTENCE FICTION - Companion

I truly loved writing my response to Lillie’s prompt word on her website for this week of “COMPANION.” I’d loved to read your comments on this one.

 

The Truth is Finally Revealed

For some reason I’ve never been the marrying type of person, perhaps it had been for a fear of being committed to one person, and only one person.

However, when I heard Michael’s sweet, devoted wife died suddenly from ovarian cancer thirty years ago, I felt he needed someone.

I didn’t do much, but clean his house, cook an occasional meal, kept him company when he wanted to go to a restaurant; and I never ever slept with him in the same bed.

This morning I received the tragic news from his only daughter that he’d died in his sleep.

And now, I’ve finally realized the truth; that although he’d never been my husband for the past thirty years; he’d always been my sole COMPANION.

WEEKLY STATUS REPORT # 4

Sorry for the delay. I wanted to publish this entry on Sunday but got sidetracked with other matters.

While I’ve made some progress this past week it hasn’t been what I’d wanted to have accomplished.

This week I spent some time tightening what I’ve already written for my YA Fantasy romance novel.  While there hasn’t been any substantial change in the length I now have two completed chapters. 

My progress in writing my second WIP “His Darkest Secret” is still continuing. In the past week I’ve written another chapter consisting of 4 pages and approximately 1,100 words, which bring the total for this endeavor to a total of 37 Chapters, 243 pages with approximately 72,100 words. At this time I estimate I’ll need about three more chapters before I can type that elusive final period of my manuscript.  [I've just double checked my math I actually have 247 pages done with 72,100 words, somehow I'd transposed two numbers when I wrote them down - 03/27/14.]

My anthology of Flash Fiction is up to 83 items with 4 new ones having been written in the past week.

For my third project, “It Had All Been a Game”, I’ve corrected the formatting of each page and have also added page numbers and left/right page headers.[pages for the WORD file for this manuscript look like a page from an actual book]. In addition to the reformatting I’ve only written about 320 words, bringing the total to three chapters, 21 pages and approximately 6,160 words.

  

FIVE SENTENCE FICTION - Ruins

Well here we are again responding to Lillie McFerrin’s prompt word for the week of “RUINS.”  This week I’ve decided to respond with an old adage we’ve all heard numerous times

CHEATERS NEVER WIN

Jack for some reason always seemed to have managed to win every single car race he ever entered.  His competitors couldn’t help but take note of this achievement, so they set up a plan to find out the possible reason for his unprecedented success. So the night before the next race they set up teams to follow him wherever he might go through the night. One of the teams got successful and saw him sabotage each of his competitor’s cars so he now RUINS any chance of their winning the race. With the knowledge in hand all the other drivers spent the entire night undoing the handiwork Jack had done, and rejoiced when he finally came in last at the end of the race.

FIVE SENTENCE FICTION - Lucky

This week Lillie McFerrin gave her readers the prompt word of “LUCKY” for which they’re required to write a Five Sentence Flash Fiction, here is my response.

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

Janice never seemed to have any luck going back as far as her college years.

Although she had been voted the homecoming queen, she never could get the attention of the best looking guy on campus; instead he went for the plainest looking co-ed, who he ultimately married.

At a supermarket due to her kindest she allowed a senior citizen with four items go ahead of her on the line who won the $10,000 prize for being the store’s 1,000,000^th customer.

The same thing happened at the stationery store when a senior citizen bought the instant lottery ticket she wanted to buy and won the Grand Prize.

However, today, as she read the morning paper, Janice smiled from ear to ear, because the guy she didn’t married and his wife got arrested for running a $50 million Ponzi scheme.  

WEEKLY STATUS REPORT # 3

This past week has been quite fruitful.

To begin with I’ve actually begun writing the YA Fantasy romance I’d mentioned last week when I stated I’m merely creating an outline for it.  From the looks of things, this endeavor will in all probability will develop into a novella of about 34,000 to 37,000 words. Right now the stats are one-and-a half chapter completed, with seven pages and approximately 1,750 words, which now brings the total numbers of WIPs I’m working on at the same time to four.

When I mention my stats I mean what each of endeavors would look like if it actually had been a book: Single-spaced, 6” x 9” inch pages with book-looking margins, appropriate page headers and numbers on each page].

In addition, after over three months of dormancy I’ve finally made progress in my second WIP, an adult Contemporary with a paranormal element running through parts of the storyline, entitled “His Darkest Secret.” In the past week I’ve managed to write an entire chapter consisting of five pages and almost 1,500 words; which bring the total for his endeavor to a total of 35 Chapters, 239 pages with approximately 69,875 words.

My anthology of Flash Fiction is up to 79 items with 4 new ones having been written in the past week.

For my third project, “It Had All Been a Game”, I’ve completed a second chapter, which brings the stats to two completed chapters, 18 pages and approximately 5,840 words.

 

WEEKLY STATUS REPORT # 2

As I said last week, with the three major writing endeavors I'm currently working I've decided I should do a weekly status report of what I'm doing on each one, so here’s the second of my weekly status reports. 

"His Darkest Secret" -  Another week has unfortunately gone by for my second romance endeavor, an adult Contemporary with a paranormal element running through parts of the storyline. It’s still at about 80% complete with 34 Chapters, 234 Pages, and approximately 64,800 words. 

My anthology of Flash Fiction now has 75 items with 4 new ones having been written in the past week.

"It Had All Been a Game" – Is my third romance endeavor, an adult Contemporary novella, which might become a NA depending on the dialogue I use and the narrative I ultimately end up writing. In the past week I’ve completed  Chapter 2 with six additional pages and about 850 words; bringing the total to 2 Chapters, 12 pages with 5,650 words. 

I’ve just begun making a skeleton outline for my fourth romance endeavor.  This one I envision to be a YA Fantasy romance one, whether it will be a novella or a full fledge novel I have no idea whatsoever.  I’m also debating whether or not to use the same two main characters from my first YA Romance novel “I Kissed a Ghost.”

FIVE SENTENCE FICTION - Furious

I’ve been quite busy the last few weeks with a number of writing endeavors. However, this week I’d made a commitment not to wait until the last minute to write my response.  For the next few days I’m going to attempt to catch up with responding to all those I’ve missed for those prompts I’d responded to.  So for my response this week I’ve decided to write something which many of might have had to endured with the recent snowstorms. So here is my response to furious.

SOMETIMES IT DOESN’T PAY TO GET UP

Chelsea has already been a hard working committed civil servant at the local welfare center seldom missing a day there except for her vacations.

However last week on Friday when her town got hit with a huge almost blizzard-like snowstorm she left home 90 minutes early so she could be there at her 9:00 AM start of her shift since the radio newscaster said all town offices will be open.

No matter which way she tried to go in her SUV accidents prevented her moving anywhere for several minutes at a time.

Eventually, travelling only has fast as 15 miles per hour she arrived at her office after driving for almost three hours only to find they’d posted a sign ten minutes earlier reading: “The office will be closed today due to the weather.”

Chelsea had no problem with what happened; that is until Monday when she got furious because they’d marked her absent with a day of leave time lost and had no recourse but to start a lengthy fight to get the day back with the aid of her union.

 

WEEKLY STATUS REPORT # 1

With the three major writing endeavors I'm currently working I've decided I should do a weekly status report of what I'm doing on each one. 

"His Darkest Secret" - My second romance endeavor, an adult Contemporary with a paranormal element running  is still at about 80% complete with 34 Chapters, 234 Pages, and approximately 64,800 words. 

My anthology of Flash Fiction now has 71 items with three new ones having been written in the past week.

"It Had All Been a Game" - My third romance endeavor, an adult Contemporary novella, which might become a NA had only 1 new page written of 278 words bringing the total to 12 pages and about 3,800.  It is also the beginning of Chapter 2.