This post probably should have happened yesterday, but there was absolutely no juice left in the tank to talk about anything even remotely writing related. Also, we found out we’d been exposed to COVID yesterday and Trevor tested positive, so I really viewed the day as one of rest and resetting.
Today is a day of action, I think. We’re quarantining through the first week of good weather here in like, 10 months, so I’m sunbathing on the front porch as I write this. I’m going to write this post, work on this month’s newsletter, and then do some choring around the house so Trevor doesn’t have to convalesce in a sty.
But, first things first, how did The Longest Day go?
The Longest Day
So, I’ve already had a whole blog post introducing the idea – I won’t rehash all that here. But, to sum up, a bunch of Word Nerds teamed up to fundraise for Alzheimer’s research by writing from sunrise to sunset. In Oregon, the days are pretty long in the summer. Sunrise was at 5:26a and sunset was at 9:06p. That’s 15.5 HOURS of writing, folks. FIFTEEN AND A HALF HOURS!
So I woke up REAL early, brewed some coffee, and joined a Zoom room with some amazing writers for the ENTIRE DAY.
Who were these amazing writers? Well, here’s a Dramatis Personae for you:
(linked names = twitter profiles)
- Benjamin Gorman
- Fearless Leader of team Writing Against the Dark, and Co-Owner of indie press, Not a Pipe Publishing. He also happens to be an Educator, Activist, and all-around Rad Dude™.
- Nan C. Ballard
- Science Fiction author published by Not a Pipe, and member of my critique group. The first book in her series Under Carico’s Moons is available for Pre-Order NOW! If you like Space and/or Cowboys, it might just be your jam!
- Maxfield Lydum
- I met Max for the first time on Tuesday and he is hilarious! He’s also working on a retelling of an American Classic, so we had some very cool conversations. Find his Self-Published debut here!
- Karen Eisenbrey
- Another Not a Pipe author, Karen is based out of Seattle. She has a prolific backlog of short fiction and some wicked cool YA SFF available now. Visit her website to learn more!
- John Dover
- I met John on Tuesday and learned very quickly that the man has the fastest fingers in Oregon! His word count total for the day was something like 17k+ and he typed circles around us. He also appreciates a celebratory whisky, tacos, and beer. I think we’ll be friends. Learn more about John at his website and check out his most recent release Once Upon a Fang in the West! Y’all should know I’m a sucker for a Weird Western so…
- Jacqui Pitt
- I know of Jacqui from our time working at our local Public Library, although I’m not sure she remembered me, haha! Now, like me, she works in Public Schools supporting their libraries! She’s hilarious and dedicated and just genuinely a sweetheart. It was so good to see her again!
- Brittany Zelkovich
- Hi! You can learn more about me, well, here!
- Cyndi Swaney
- Another Educator and Activist, Cyndi is all about Digital Media and Arts and is yet another Rad Human™ (although virtually elusive).
- Marie Parks
- Marie joined us later in the day as she 1.) had to work and 2.) lives in New Mexico! I am so jealous of her easy access to hatch chiles. She’s another Not a Pipe author (sensing a theme yet?) and her debut book Unrelenting (co-authored with Jessi Honard) is available now!
The goal was to raise $5,000. As of last night, we were $15 dollars short. But as of this morning…
WE DID IT!
Total raised was $5,045! Way to go team Writing Against the Dark! All together we wrote 71,816 words! I personally wrote 12,798 words, which is a new personal best for a single day’s work! I recognize that there are a lot of exclamation points in this post, but damn it! It’s exciting stuff!
But what’s even more exciting, and you may have noticed it on the Latest page, is that I finished the Victoria rough draft! FINISHED IT. Done-ski. Finito. DONE!
This book has been such a challenge since I started it back in November. It’s just such a different book than anything else I’ve ever tried to write. First of all, it’s a retelling, so I had specific plot points and beats I wanted to stick to. I knew the ending before I started, which for me is almost a death sentence for a project. I’m a “Discovery Writer” – I write to find out what happens. But with a retelling, I already KNOW what happens, which made finding the motivation to write difficult sometimes.
But there were more challenges. For instance, it’s completely epistolary (told via documents like journal entries and audio transcripts), non-linear, and *maybe* has an unreliable narrator. So writing it was like putting together a puzzle WHILE MAKING the puzzle.
It hurt my brain a lot, okay? And for a while there I wasn’t sure I could finish it. I hadn’t written seriously on it since February, and had written only 750 words on it recently. Then I sat down with a group of wonderful people and just… hammered it out. At just over 29k words, it’s done. Yes, that’s short, but I knew early on that it would be a novella, not a full blown novel, so it ended up right where I wanted it.
And now it’s done.
I guess that means I’m in Revision Mode for the summer, with The Finest Creation of an Artful God and Something Sulfurous both being SO CLOSE to being done. I prefer revising in the summer months. I like to take manuscripts to breweries and sit on their patios and edit away when the weather is nice. Drafting is for the months when being indoors is preferable.
Well, as usual, I got a bit rambly. The point here is that The Longest Day was incredibly productive AND fun. Thank you to those who donated (shoutout to my donors: Ginny, Heather, Melissa, Patty, and Tomma!) and I will for sure be participating again.
Have a great weekend, Blogland! And I’ll see you again soon with the Goals Summary.
Until then,
BZ
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