Virginia McClain: Welcome to December!

Well, I'm back from my travels in the southwest, but am poised to head off on more adventures on the east coast for a bit of family midwinter celebrations. I laugh at the term midwinter, as midwinter in Winnipeg is generally sometime in February, but hey, if we're just talking shortest day of the year, we're almost there.

Sorry I didn't get any blogging done last week. Between travel and recovering from travel, it was not a very productive time. This week I'm back at work, which for me means blogging, making videos, and, of course, writing.

I'm happy to announce that I managed to squeak out 50,000 words in November despite how busy I was on my trip. Unfortunately for me, I was so bad about keeping up with writing that I wrote just over 12,000 words in the first two weeks and then nothing until the final four days where I suddenly knocked out about 38,000. I don't recommend that. At all.

But it worked.

So my new total for both manuscripts is the following:

Traitor's Hope: 61,578 words
Victoria Marmot: 25,031 words

Total words for both projects: 86,609

Is that the 150,000 words I was shooting for back in September when I started this project? No. No, it isn't. But it's still a lot and I hope to finish off both manuscripts in the remainder of December. Big plans, folks. BIG PLANS.

I had to take a brief writing break after the huge amount of output in the last few days of November. I actually, with no exaggeration, made myself feel exhausted and hungover for a few days from just the sheer volume of creative output in those days. And before you ask, no, no actual alcohol was involved in that hangover. Though I would not have turned it down had it been offered.

So... December. A month I'm generally quite fond of, but this year is likely to look like a toned down version of November, or rather a month in which I plan to actually write every day at a reasonable pace instead of doing the stupid break-neck of the end of November that I did once already. Did I mention what a bad idea that was? Terrible. Awful. Seriously... don't do that if you can avoid it.

Ok, enough of that. So, coming soon there will be a series of not one, not two, but THREE new youtube videos. The reason for that is that I made one huge video and realized it was probably better to cut it up into smaller, more digestible pieces. It's a video made to help folks who are trying decide whether or not to go indie or trad when it comes to publishing. I've tried to make it as unbiased as I can, but I think it's possible a bit of bias crept in there.

Anyway, I actually need to get going in order to go edit the aforementioned videos, and maybe go for a run. I'm trying not to let the colder weather stop me from running... we'll see how my lungs feel about that. Luckily I have a pull-up bar now in order to keep me from getting zero exercise at all. (Have I told you about the pull-up toll? It's my favorite game. Every time you walk under the pull up bar you have to pay the pull up toll. Exercising has never been so short format.)

I will leave you with a few photos of Artemis enjoying our new apartment (did I mention my husband moved us between two apartments by himself while I was down in the US?) and the colder weather which, of course, appeals to her.