write « Robin Writes

I spent a good portion of the month of February writing. Nearly every day, in fact, and at the end of the month I had around 30K words. Not too shabby! And then life got in the way.

For those of you who don’t know, we own a bookstore. I really nice one, if I do say so myself, but we just opened last October. I do the marketing, advertising, accounting – although I have a real one on retainer for the tricky stuff, like when I have to do math – and booking events, writing the store blog and bi-weekly newsletter, etc., etc. We do still have a kid at home too, and the spring of 8th grade year is always busy with things like graduation and confirmation and getting the high school paperwork ready. Plus we had company come in, and a houseguest for a month – although it’s my stepmom and she is a GREAT help at the bookstore!

So, I got busy…with all that and a few other things besides. But I still wrote, just not as much or as often. I also have a tendency to go back through the WIP quite often, adding and deleting but mostly correcting. By the end of June, and a bit into July, I’d added another 20K words.

Now, it was crunch time. I was getting tired of procrastinating and I told the fam: okay, this is IT. I’m going to finish this book! And I did. I set the date of July 28 and, at 10:00 p.m. that night, I finished. 30K words in two weeks.

Someone told me that Stephen King once said that if one writes 2K words a day, that’s a good day. On one of those last days I wrote 6K. Took my hands a full day to recover!

So, just a tad over 80K (okay, 83,202) in six months. Not too shabby.

How often do you write? How many words per day, or do you not keep track? Do you write every day? Most days? Whenever the mood strikes (or the muse insists)?

This past week I was offered a publishing contract. I turned it down and made the decision to publish REDUCED myself. The E-book will be out within the next couple of weeks, and the print version available soon after that. In the meantime, here is the book blurb for REDUCED:

A devastating biological agent is about to be released, to be tested in remote areas. Rumor has it, though, that there is more to this than meets the eye. One group makes plans to hide out, and survive, in case that rumor proves to be truth. Meeting at an abandoned summer camp near St. Louis, Missouri, a dozen old friends gather after the alarm is raised.

Life becomes more precious, more tenuous, as time passes. Government controls tighten, people are herded into the city…or killed. Towns are obliterated. And soon, the enemy agenda becomes obvious.

Abby, like the rest, has special skills – each member of the group was chosen not only because of past ties, but also for their unique training and abilities. She will come face-to-face with death, bear the responsibility for a young girl, and endure the severing of childhood relationships in the most terrible way imaginable.

From mere concealment to reconnaissance to aiding a rebellion, where will it end? Will the entire region be decimated, and who will be left alive to know?