So This is the New Year

Wrote the title and then stopped, went back to my blog, checked last year's first post and realized that I'd also titled it "So This is the New Year." And then I sat down to read over what I'd written a year ago and see where things are.

I was thinking of doing another resolution post today. List the goals, talk about them, you know the drill. And last years post I did the exact same thing. So instead here is what didn't happen:

I didn't finish the novel
I didn't get lastingly in shape
I didn't give up soda
I didn't spend less

So we'll reset those goals and try again.

Now about the novel. It got as far as 60,000 words last December, and then a sudden realization of the story I was telling after a conversation with my friend Duke (his blog here) cost me about 10,000 words, of which I've recovered about 5,000. So the approximate word count (without actually looking at the document) is around 55,000 words. I'm figuring that by the end we're going to be looking at something close to 80-90,000 words.

For those of you who hear word count and have no idea what that means here are some references:

The Lord Of The Rings (~470,000 words)
The Hobbit (95,022 words)
The Gunslinger (55,376 words)
American Gods (183, 222 words)

(source)

So ~85,000 seems a pretty acceptable venture for a first time novel (that and there is no point in pushing the story further than it wants to go.

I've also decided that (after years of being wishy washy) that this year is the one for doing the Chicago Marathon. Going into training for that as soon as I have an understanding of my schedule (next week).

Duke and I started a sort of accountability on writing to ensure that we get stuff done. The goal is one short story a month. At the end of each month we send that short story to each other to do a first edit as we begin on next month's short story.

Should be good. And with that back to work and to class