The Daily Check on His Enchanted Girlfriend

Very excited today! My latest 50-word story ("The Daily Check on His Enchanted Girlfriend") was awarded "story of the week" on the 50-word stories site! And the piece has been ranked alongside the awesome Bob Thurber (read his stuff - it's brilliant!), so I'm feeling kinda good about myself right now :-)

A million words in 2016 (June)

I'm writing a million words in 2016!

Below is the progress diary for June (I'll be updating it as the month goes on). If you're interested, here's the intro, and here are the diaries for January, February, March, April and May.

The red number in the right-hand column is the total word count. Please wish me luck in watching that number tick up to 1,000,000 over the rest of the year!

The Million-Word Diary: June

1st June	764,786
It's time for another spreadsheet. Yep, another! Sometimes I feel like I spend more time playing around with writing-related spreadsheets than I do actually getting the writing done. Actually, no, I don't feel like that at all. The spreadsheet is a motivator to help me get all this crazy typing finished so I can use it in some projects!  The typing is a separate task to the million words project, and it's kinda killing me. The notebooks I'm typing-up all came from 2015 and 2016, during which I attended a thousand (slight exaggeration, but probably not by too much) writing courses, classes, workshops and groups. As a results, I have literally hundreds of scribbled hand-written pages of ideas, notes, first-drafts of scenes, and god knows what else. All of it has to be typed so I can start hacking it about and making it into something useful. The typing is taking ages, so that's why I'm spreadsheeting. This task is horribly dull so - for the sake of my sanity - I need to be able to say "I typed 44 pages today" and have something reply with "that means you'll be finished in 50 days". My lovely spreadsheet is doing that for me. Thank you, spreadsheet. (No problem, replies the spreadsheet, would you like a cup of tea?) Along with the typing-up task, I'm also managing to keep the word count going. Feeling a little more enthusiastic about it now - I hope that feeling lasts! Today saw another 4,735 words so the total's now 764,786.
4th June	778,633
The awesome Sophie wrote today to tell me off because I haven't yet submitted anything to Domestic Cherry 5. To be honest, I'm not sure I'm quite up to their standard, but I haven't written any flash fiction in ages so sat down to scribble. And - oh my god - it worked! I lost myself in the scribbles and ended up with eight flash fics. Eight! Okay, I don't know if anyone else will like them but I fired three of them off anyway. Fingers crossed! The word counts for 2-4 June were 1,446, 5,890, 6,511, so my total's now 778,633. The "typing-up of notebooks" task is going well too - the file's now 100k words long! That's 100k of notes and scribbles and free-writes and, well, stuff. And I think most of it's actually useful!
6th June	786,733
Last year I worked out how to submit work for publication, and *wow* what a rush! If you've never sent anything off, I really do recommend it. Yes, rejections sometimes hurt a bit, but it happens to everyone and there's nothing - nothing! - quite like that first buzz of seeing your work in a proper publication, whether it be hard-copy or online. I was bitten by the bug and started submitting like mad. And I got acceptances! People actually published my work! Wow, validation at last. Okay, I'm not going to pretend I produced any works of genius, but it was nice to discover that some of my stuff was deemed worthy. And there was an unsuspected bonus... my brain reacted to the validation and suddenly it was much easier to write. Publication is amazing for confidence levels! Unfortunately, submitting takes ages. Producing the work is fine, but writing a decent cover letter (and spending ages scouring through badly designed websites to find the name of the editor) is slow slow slow, and excruciatingly dull. So this year I've hardly been submitting at all. That said, there's still the occasional bit of validation. And each time it happens, something seems to "unblock" in my brain, and out come ideas. I just wish that feeling lasted. Word counts for 5-6 June were 3,457 and 4,643. The total is now 786,733.
10th June	800,235
Nothing much new to say apart from I'm still manically typing up my old notebooks, and I'm still manically trying to write a million words this year! I'm bored, bored, bored with it all but am managing to keep going so that's what matters, right? :-) Word counts for 7-10 June were 4,451, 4,911, 793 (awful day!) and 3,347 and so the total is now 800,235. I've passed the 800k barrier, woohoo!
16th June	826,431
Typing, typing, typing! It feels like I've hardly been doing anything but typing up notebooks these past few weeks. I had a year's worth of notes and scribblings to type, and I may never stop moaning about it. Moan moan moan. Anyway, I finally finished at about 4 AM this morning. Here's the final pile of now-typed-up junk! It's all typed up at last! Too many notebooks! Too many scribbled-on bits of paper full of suggestions from writing classes! I'm never writing longhand again! There was tons of useful stuff... but as a big pile of paper it was completely useless, so the typing had to be done. And I'm going to keep telling myself that because it is actually true, no matter how often I thought it'd be easier just to burn it all!  Anyway, it's all complete now and I can sort all the typing out into projects... and then finally start working on turning it all into something worth reading! I may collapse in exhaustion for a while first though, if that's okay? Final total for the typing-up came to more than 183,000 words. Some of that probably should count towards my "million words in 2016" project but it's too much hassle to work out what was written this year and what wasn't. So I'm ignoring it all! The million words project is continuing though. Word counts for 11-16 June were 5,380, 5,493, 4,240, 4,199, 3,285 and 3,599, and that means my total's now 826,431.
22nd June	839,330
Disaster! All that typing was too much for my laptop - it died! Luckily I had everything backed up, but now I find myself de-computered right at the stage where I desperately needed a fast machine to work on. Aargh! *bangs head on wall in frustration* I've ordered a new laptop but I'm currently living in the middle of nowhere and god knows how long it'll take to arrive. Ah well, at least I was organised enough to bring a spare one! It'll keep me going while I wait for the new laptop, but sadly it's the oldest machine in the world. Windows 10 has hobbled it so severely that it takes at least 17 extra hamsters to get it started. I probably sound like I'm exaggerating but imagine typing a whole sentence and then stopping to watch the screen as Windows thinks about what you just did, and then, finally, the sentence appears. Ouch. Yes, I know this is a first world problem - but the delay is death to the creative flow... and that's kinda painful when you've taken a huge chunk of time off to be creative! I'm writing a few little bits and pieces longhand but am ignoring them for the moment because, well, counting words by hand doesn't sound much fun. So 20th June is officially my stopping point for now. Word counts for 17-20 June were 5,105, 4,125, 2,167 and 1,502.  The total's now 839,330. And I guess it'll be staying that way until I get my new laptop... Sad face :-(
30th June	839,330
End of the month and still no new laptop. It's all a bit painful and frustrating, but at least it gives me an excuse to fall asleep in the sun every so often. Talking of the sun - ouch - it's a bit warm here in Greece! My wimpy English skin is in shock at the heat, and it's not even July yet!

Manu

Manu is out! It's a short film by Deepa Jacob, inspired by one of my stories! (I won't say which story because that'd spoil the ending of the film!)

The YouTube player should appear above, but if it doesn't then click here to see the film (it's about 14 minutes long).

My name on a film poster - how exciting is that?! :-) 

A second film poster - yay! :-)

A million words in 2016 (May)

I'm writing a million words in 2016!

Below is the progress diary for May (I'll be updating it as the month goes on). If you're interested, here's the intro, and here are the diaries for January, February, March and April.

The red number in the right-hand column is the total word count. Please wish me luck in watching that number tick up to 1,000,000 over the rest of the year!

The Million-Word Diary: May

1st May	632,089
This is the only thing keeping me motivated! The year ticks on and somehow I'm still managing to get words done. I'm not saying they're good words, but they are words, which means I'm writing! I've skipped a few days here and there, but I'm on track to finish before the end of the year. In fact I'm ahead at the moment, which is quite a relief! That graph above is from my spreadsheet. Yes, I know, graphs are dull, dull, dull... but if I didn't have this graph then I'd probably have quit by now. The red line shows my "par" (i.e. where I'd be if I was writing the 2,733 words a day, that I need to reach a million by the end of the year). The blue line shows my current tally. Did I mention that I'm ahead? I'M AHEAD! Yay! :-) The spreadsheet also gives me a few useful stats. Sure, that probably sounds dull, but it honestly is helping my motivation! Okay, here come the stats... brace yourselves. Stats, stats, statty-stat-stats... At the moment there are 243 days left until the end of 2016 and (because I'm ahead!) I only need to write 1,515 words per day to finish on time. However, my current average words-per-day is 5,139 and if I keep that going then I'll finish the million on 14 Sept. This concludes today's broadcast from "stats-that-are-only-interesting-to-Mark-dot-com". Today saw another 3,697 words and so the total's now 632,089.
8th May	657,151
More books/notes typed! 55,000 words so far! So far, I've typed up roughly 55,000 words, and there's still loads to go! I can't face typing up any more notebooks and so I'm now starting on the scrappy bits of notepaper.   That pile of paper in the pic above is mostly printouts covered in scribbles made at writing workshops. These scribbles take longer to work through than the notebooks! It doesn't look like much, but it's amazing how much motivation is generated by this pile of old notebooks and papers. I was going to throw the papers away but keeping them means I can see them pile up. And the pile looks even better thanks to the very fetching SpongeBob bedspread. Typing is dull, dull, dull but brain is still refusing to give me many ideas so I'm just plodding away for the time being. However, a couple of times I've found the notes have sparked something and I've had one of those wonderful creative explosions of productivity... you know, those fantastic moments when you type like crazy - words spilling from the mind like a glorious desert rain - and then you look up several hours later to realise that your creative side finally woke up.  Maybe this is why writers are often semi-depressed... it's a career that involves about a thousand hours of miserable typing until *bang* you finally get a creative spark that fizzes out almost immediately but gives you just enough hope to carry on. Remind me why we do this to ourselves? :-) Word counts for 2-8 May were 2,305, 2,054, 1,098, 1,728, 1,500, 7,746 and 8,631. Two cracking good days at the end there - go me! :-) The total's now 657,151.
11th May	668,824
Guess what? I wrote some short stories! And, if I'm organised, I might even try to sell them.  A while back I experimented with throwing a story on the kindle store and it turned out to be several million times easier than expected! To do so, you first have to register with Amazon... and that's when you find that the registration form looks terrifying. It was about a thousand pages long (and billions of people will tell you that I never exaggerate). I started filling in the form ("You are on page 1 of 5,000,012") and was ready to give up when suddenly came the magic question: "Do you live in the USA?" ... I said "no" and *pop* suddenly the form was complete. Magic! Turns out that most of the registration form is for American citizens to fill in their tax details. Us lesser mortals (!) don't have to bother with all that :-) At least, not until we make our first million. Anyway, that particular short story was duly chucked up on the kindle store, and I did no advertising or marketing whatsoever. The whole thing was just an experiment to see how easy the upload process was. But somehow - despite my lack of effort - people found the story and bought it. To be precise, five Americans and one Japanese dude bought that story. I don't know what they thought of it, but it was kinda cool to have people reading my stuff and actually paying real money to do so. Okay, it wasn't a lot of real money, but it felt like a good start! So now I'm trying to write a series of short stories in the hope of producing a whole collection. I don't know if I have the energy or motivation to do much marketing, but I quite like the idea of throwing a ton of little stories up on Amazon and seeing what happens. Apparently the story word count only needs to be about 3,000 words, which is actually quite easy once you get going. The biggest drain on time is scouring free image sites to create a book cover. I'm told that one of the simplest things you can do to build a readership is to put a ton of links on the last page of your book (basically it's "click these links to buy my other stories")... so that's all the marketing I'll bother to do for the time being. (I'd much rather be writing than bothering to buy advertising space or doing random stuff like that!) I'm not expecting riches, but it'd be nice to generate a few quid here and there. And I'll get more into the marketing later... maybe. Ooh, I've just realised the Bridport deadline is soon! That means I need to: Scour the laptop for something worth sending, Remortgage the house in order to afford the entry fee.  Word counts for 9-11 May were 2,530, 4,880 and 4,263. The total's now 668,824.
19th May	685,468
The film Manu came out on the 13th of May! Am I allowed to be excited about this? Because I am! Someone made a film inspired by one of my stories! That's exciting, right?! The story in question is "One In, One Out" which was published on the 50-word-stories site back in November '15. (Don't read the story if you want to watch the film - you'll spoil the ending!) Soooo.... a few exciting things have happened, but otherwise it's just plod, plod, plod as I try to type up all my notes. I've found a few gems but the actual typing task is soooooo dull. And the end is a long way off... (Moan, moan, moan!) Word count tallies are getting harder to calculate. I wish I'd been counting the stuff I'm typing up, because a lot of it was actually written in 2016 (so it should count towards my million words!) ... However, it's too confusing trying to work out what's been typed already and what needs typing now (e.g. if I wrote a story and needed it typed immediately then, obviously, I've already done it... but god knows where it ended up). And even dumber than that, something often sparks an idea while I'm typing, and so I sit typing new stuff for ages... and for some reason I'm not counting those words in my tally. Why?! I have no idea. I'm just waffling and confused! But that's okay because no one's actually daft enough to read this blog, are they?! :-) Anyway, I think what I'm trying to say is that my total should be higher than it is (I reckon I'm actually past the 700k barrier already), but I'm too confused to work out my exact word counts any more. Bah. Can someone remind me why I'm doing this project? I've had quite a few days of "oh god, I'm in bed already and have only just realised I forgot to write something today!" ... and this results in leaping up, rushing at the last minute to write something. It's not the best way to end a day, but I've read that being sleepy means you're closer to dream state, and therefore it's easier to be creative. Sounds good in theory, right? Word counts for 12-19 May were 2,161, 944, 1,136, 4,822, 2,020, 2,487, 702 and 2,372. The total is now 685,468.
23rd May	702,649
Woohoo! I've broken the 700k barrier! Word counts for 20-23 May were 1,329, 3,413, 6,702 and 5,737. The total's now 702,649.
31st May	760,051
I've known for ages that it was the Bridport deadline today but somehow still managed to get myself into a last minute panic! The problem is that despite producing all these words, I still kinda hate most of what I write! (The editing stage is going to be hellish.) Also, most of what I'm writing is for novels (or series of novels!) so as a result I don't have much flash fiction or poetry. However I did have a few flash fictions from last year, and I don't entirely hate them... so off thr ey went! And then I found a few poems so sent them off too. I'm no poet but hey, it was fun to pretend! Spent an obscene amount of money on entry fees but I did manage to get onto the Bridport flash fiction short-list last year (I try not to mention this more than once or twice... a day), so I couldn't help feeling like I had to try again. There's a subtle advantage of submitting while on holiday... the time difference! The deadline was midnight but I'm in Greece, so I had until 2 AM to get my submission in :-) I had a couple of days where I couldn't seem to stop typing. That's great for the word count but, dear god, it's a mess. I think I averaged about two typos per word. It's going to be fun trying to sort that lot out. Anyway, the word counts for 24-31 May were 2,792, 3,779, 5,450, 2,847, 13,209, 3,785, 11,704 and 13,836, so the total is now 760,051.