An update - Of Progress and Performance

So for those of you who don't know me very well, I've only been taking my writing seriously for about 8 months now. Prior to June of last year, I hadn't done any serious writing of any kind since the philosophy papers I wrote in college. Of course I have not published anything yet, so I can't really be considered a "professional writer" or anything along those lines, but the point that since that time I've written close to 100,000 words in various formats should not be ignored.

I suppose I never really explained the purpose of this blog. My original goal was to simply offer up stories I've been writing as a form of entertainment to the reader, as well as - gasp - do some advertising and lay the foundations for any future books I may publish. Most of my posts, accordingly, are short stories I've written and progress reports. I may branch out as time goes on (actually, there's no "may" about it given how much time I spend reading other blogs like that of Chuck Wendig (terribleminds.com)).

This post is definitely in the "progress report" category.

Today, my first book - Marvelous - was accepted into the second round of Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award competition.

To say I'm happy would be an understatement. I wrote Marvelous on a whim, in 30 days, because my sister (Jennifer Young, a fantastic writer) challenged me to a word duel. I won, but that's beside the point. My first real effort (minus some intense editing and headaches) was selected as part of the top 20% of all entrants. It's empowering and exciting, as well as terrifying all at the same time. The first round was on my blurb. The next, though, is on my writing.

Anyway, on a different note, I hit 26k words on Majestic this morning. The story is humming along, and I'm getting to a phase where I'm finding it a bit of a challenge to focus on the writing. The same thing happened to me with Marvelous the first time around. I'm pushing through, but my pace has definitely decreased from the 4k words per day I was putting up last week. Of course, the fact that I'm working extra hours at work may play into that.

Anyway, the quick summary: It's all good here, for now!