Well, November is over, and I didn’t get through 50,000 words of Hunters. I got through 25,900, and I shortened the manuscript by about 3,000.
I can see why people usually do first drafts for NaNo. In that case, just laying down words is a useful activity. When you’re working on a near-final draft, they have to be the right words or it’s counter-productive. Still, I got back into the habit of writing everyday, which I haven’t done since anesthesia school. 1,000 words a day is a good speed for me and not stressful. I had a lot of stuff going on this month as I deal with an unexpected health problem, have early holidays with my family, try to help my brother and sister-in-law with a new baby, prepare to transition to a new travel assignment in Maryland, and try to spend time with my friends in Portland before I leave. I didn’t put too much priority on NaNo, and I’m happy with what I still managed to get done. You will continue to see updates to Hunters on this site until it’s finished.
Over the last few days, I stopped working on Hunters to focus on something that I’ve been trying to get off my plate all year—the audio version of Crossroads, the Panamindorah short story collection. I *finally* got it done. This will be a Podiobooks.com exclusive. It includes 2 stories that have only ever been paid content until now (Night in the Crystal City and Professionals). The version of Professionals in the free audiobook will be my solo read. The fullcast version is still in my online store, but I’ve lowered the price to $2. The audio for Crystal City has not been available anywhere since Feb. All the files have been uploaded to Libsyn, and all related info is with Evo. He’ll schedule the book whenever he gets time, probably in the next couple of weeks.
You’d think that Crossroads would not be a big project, since all the stories were already recorded. And it wasn’t a *big* project, but it did require about 10 hours of focused attention. It needed overall book-ends of audio from me, and the individual stories needed intros and outros with an author’s note, giving some context and background. I want people unfamiliar with my books to be able to enjoy them. Most of the stories were also tangled up with other audio, which had to be clipped and spliced. The overall sound quality varies a lot, but I think they’re still enjoyable. I’ll make another announcement when the book is actually up at Podiobooks.com.
In addition, I spent several days this week with Rah Cloutier (who lives in Portland), working on sketches for Cowry Catchers Book 4. They go a lot faster when I’m there in person to throw out ideas and say “this and not that.” CC4 is going to have some beautiful artwork! Here’s a teaser:
