New Beginnings

For maybe the first time in my career, I started a new manuscript on New Year’s Day. Usually I’m in the middle of a book at the end of the year. But this time I finished up a project on Sunday, then took yesterday off . . . which means that I spent a few hours editing and revising that manuscript, as well as going to the library to get some research books for the project I started today and doing some reading in them last night.

Most of the time I have pretty good first days on my books, and that was the case today as I wrote 24 pages. Yes, it’s the Return of the Page Count, at least until I get bored with it. Remember, though, I put about 10% fewer words on each page than most writers (I like plenty of white space), so adjust those numbers accordingly if you’re so inclined.

When I started this blog a few years ago I intended for it to be mostly about writing, rather than me blathering on about the books I read and the movies I watch. I quickly discovered that it’s difficult to talk about writing, though, when more often than not I can’t reveal what I’m working on. I’m going to try to do more writing-related posts this year anyway. I’ll just be vague about the specifics, which means that all I can say about the book I’m currently writing is that it’s a house-name Western. And that I got a gunfight, a fistfight, and a knifefight in the first eleven pages. Nothing like starting off with a little action.

Don’t worry that with the increase in writing-related posts that I’ll neglect the other stuff, though. You’ll still get the book and movie blather. I probably won’t try to list every book I read and every movie I watch, as I did in ’07, but I’ll still talk plenty about the ones I liked. There may also be an increase in pulp-related material. As some of you know, I used to belong to PEAPS, the pulp apa, but I resigned due to lack of time to produce a decent ‘zine for the mailings. I’m sure I’ll still be reading pulps and pulp reprints, though, so expect a few comments on them to show up here.

So while this blog may evolve slightly, for the most part it’ll be business as usual.