June Progress Report

In his latest collection of The Believer columns, entitled Shakespeare Wrote For Money, Nick Hornby suggests that if you can write 500 words a day, you can write a novel within a year. Of course, he leaves it unsaid that you should probably dedicate those 500 words to a single project. Even if he had deliberately spelt it out like that, I probably wouldn't have listened since starting too many things at once has become my hallmark.

Here is June's Fiction Writing Progress Report:

Short Stories:

"Out of Time" - in revision*

"Of Light and Darkness" - in revision*

* these make up part of my Twilight of the Idle short stories "Labellypock" and "A Night on the Fronde"

"How My Uncle Faught The Spanish Civil War" - 1000 words

"Il Brute" - 700 words, a short story about living in Bridgeland

Novel Ideas (and working titles):

A Saturday Afternoon By The Slurpee Machine - 2000 words, growing up in NE Calgary, circa 1990

Games of Chance - 1000 words, quasi-related to the current economic downturn

The Last Days of the Daily Wenzel - 8150 words

Father Borsato di Sangi - notes only, about a priest in small town Alberta, circa 1910,

Mt. Pilatus Calls My Name - notes only, a corporate satire

Good Ideas At The Time (Whole draft novels):

joculatores domini - in revision, a novel about parking attendants and the Calgary Stampede

The Liminal Trip - in revision, backpacking through Europe,

June's Total Word Count: 12850

Theoretically, Hornby would suggest that by August 1, my word count should be approaching double what it is now, though I confess I'd be happy to finish off some of these "in revision" projects.