30,000 Word Challenge – Day 5

I’m up a lot later than I thought I would be tonight. And a lot later than I want to be, since I have to be at work in the morning.  But I made a commitment to myself to make this challenge work, and you gotta do what you gotta do.

Once again, I didn’t do short stories today.  Oh well.  I got up and decided I was finally going to put some work in on The Penitent, the story idea I mentioned a little while back that was inspired by “Eyes on Fire” by Blue Foundation.  From the moment I got the inspiration, I knew the very beginning and the very end of the story, but little of the middle.  I’ve since figured out a little bit about the middle.  Sort of.  But I hadn’t really written anything yet.  So this morning, I wrote the prologue.  It took 1,643 words to finish that part, and then it was time to leave for a cookout at my friend’s house.

That’s where I hit a snag.  I ended up staying at the cookout for a LOT longer than I thought I would, partly because we were having fun and partly because I needed to just hang out and let the beer filter out of my system before I drove home.  The upshot is I didn’t leave the cookout until 9 pm or so (and the party was still going strong).  Then I got involved in listening to The Skeptic’s Guide To The Universe, an awesome science and skepticism podcast I listen to regularly.

The end result was I didn’t get to writing again until well after 11 pm.  I was sorely tempted to just say, “Screw it” and hit the rack, but I knew that would basically condemn me to failure on this challenge, so here I am, just getting finished at 1 am.  Woohoo.

But I finished the final action scene.  There’s still the epilogue to finish too, then I need to start filling in the middle.  But it’s a start.

Total word count for today: 3,063 words, bringing the total for the challenge to 14,543 words.  Still a little behind the mark, but I’m making good progress.

Right.  I’m hitting the sack.