Well, it’s March already which means it’s time to share with you all the gory details about my writing exploits during February. (It wasn’t actually gory, of course … apart from that one time …)

February was another pretty good for me. Not quite up there with January: I missed six mornings overall, and my total wordcount (including words edited) was somehow half of what it was in January. I noticed an increasing trend towards lying in at the weekends (sometimes voluntarily, other times not) which is a little frustrating as Saturday and Sunday are the two days where I don’t have to actually stop writing and go to work. Nevermind. It’s been a hot and tiring month and I don’t begrudge the extra sleep.

So let’s get onto the stats.

The stats

  • Number of writing sessions: 5
  • Number of editing sessions: 17
  • Days missed: 6
  • Words written: 3,931
  • Words edited: 19,784
  • Average words written (per session): 786
  • Average words edited: 1,164

Not much more to say here than I already said up above. I didn’t record any lunchtime writing sessions this month, and I did very little evening editing. Hopefully with the cooler weather starting to settle in I won’t miss out on quite as much sleep as I did over February.

The stories

February was all about three stories in particular.

  • “Come out, come out, wherever you are…”. My M.R.James story, which I started in January. I completed the third draft over four mornings this month. I will probably send it out for beta reading before I do any further work on this one.
  • The slow bomb. Another story started in January and completed this month.
  • Future-proof. While watching Broadchurch earlier this month I felt inspired to try writing something really, really dark—something revolving around a father killing his own son. Probably due to David Tennant’s influence I was also compelled to make it timey-wimey. I did the first two drafts earlier this month and am now on the third draft. Very pleased with this one, even though the subject matter is horrible, and the characters are awful, awful people …
  • 1-UP. To be honest I thought this was already at third draft when I found myself doing the final read-through a few evenings ago. Turns out it’s only a second draft, but as I suggested last month it’s more or less there already … anyway, only including it at the bottom here to record that it’s had a little a bit of attention during this month.
    So, one story completed, and three others well on their way.

Out to market

I still have The Beginnening and Drones out to market (as detailed last month). There are two more stories to include here:

  • Graves. My re-edit of Graves, with a shiny new cover, finally made it onto Smashwords this month.
  • The Slow Bomb. Found out quite late in the month that Uncanny Magazine were accepting submissions. Luckily this one was already complete and (to my mind at least) was a good fit for the magazine. My wife gave it a final read through and I submitted it on the last day of the month. Expected response is around 30-45 days …