September Progress Reports

Not much to report this month. Things have been extremely busy in my nine-to-five life, and so not much creative writing got done. I did write half a dozen reviews for Fast Forward and Spectrum, making that one of my busiest months as well. Back in the summer it seemed easy to find the time to write what appeared to be a paltry daily quota of 500 words. Now that my daily routine is back into grinder mode, even making that would seem to be a chore. I am developing the sense that I need to make some serious choices about how I spend my non-work, non-family time as it doesn't look like I have enough time to do some writing, some reading, and exercising each day. I might have to alternate with dedicated days for each activity. The summer demonstrated that I can write in excess of 500 words, so maybe writing 1500 words every three days could be an option?

Needless to say then, I failed to make my 45,000 word tally, and even the revised 25,000 words that I thought would be more realistic didn't happen. In fact, I only managed to type up 1000 words of the hand-written material I generated on my road trip. I also can't say that, as of October 10, this month is going to make up for it as I've written zero so far. Theoretically, my absolute totals for the end of October ought to be 60,000 words, but given my current output, even hitting 22,000 would represent an outstanding achievement.

Hopefully I'll have a better strategy in place for November.


Short Stories:
"Of Light and Darkness" - in revision*
* this is part of my Twilight of the Idle short story series along with"Labellypock", "A Night on the Fronde" and "Out of Time (Ped Xing)"
"Psychic Hearts" - in revision
"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 - 2100 words, growing up in NE Calgary, circa 1990
Games of Chance - 12000 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,

September's Total Word Count: 12000