I've been MIA because I've been kicking ass on my manuscript. I finished another chapter tonight and I'm now at 40,041 words. I can't believe it. I'm less than 10,000 words away from the required word count for a YA. In other words, I've "almost" written a book. But not really. Even though 50k is an acceptable standard, I'm not even close to wrapping up the story. Originally I thought it'd be around 75k, but now I'm worried it might be closer to 100. Nothing wrong with that, except for it means a lot of work still left to do.
This morning I found a children's story I had written probably 15 years ago, well before I had kids. It's called "Jacob Jax and the Watermelon Tree." I had these big dreams of getting it published. Ultimately I never sent it off anywhere, and I forgot all about it. It was funny, when I double-clicked on it today, my computer didn't want to open it. It hummed and hawed, like, "Really, you want me to pry this ancient thing open?" But it did eventually open the document, and I read the story out-loud for the first time ever to my kids. They loved it. They were cracking up through the whole thing. Who knows, maybe if I get Dot published, I can beg the publishers to find a place for good ole' Jacob Jax too.
Pipe dreams.
In other news, Trinity found a baby bird that looked like it had fallen from a tree at my sister in-law's house today. She couldn't find its mom, or its nest for that matter, so she brought it home. The baby bird looks like your standard sparrow. She's surprisingly hearty and doesn't seem to have any injuries. She has all of her adult feathers, but is still pretty small, so we're not sure whether we should be feeding her with a syringe or feeding her seeds. So far we've been calling her Brooke. She chirps a lot and really wants to fly. If she's still alive by tomorrow night (we have bad luck with birds), I'll take a picture of her and post it.
We're going shooting at the range early tomorrow morning with one of my coworkers and his wife. Might as well burn dollar bills for entertainment instead--would probably be cheaper.
*Fist pump* Go on, you!
ReplyDeleteAlways inspired when I read about your progress with DoT.(Btw, Feedburner delivers blog posts 24 hours later...wonder why?)
And somehow, I have a feeling all your dreams would come true! ;)
*Fist pump* back at ya lady! You'll be right up there with me in August.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've noticed the delay with Feedburner myself. Ugh. Better late than never though.
Congrats on making SO much progress! Keep it up, because I'm gonna be keeping tabs of that little bar on the side!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE the watermelon story. Could you email it to me? I would love to read it to Samantha & Shelby. It's such a great little story. That one should of been published a long time ago.
~Shan
Yes, I'll gladly e-mail it to you!
DeleteNot very many people get as far as you have. If you told a non-writer to write 40k words, they'd think you lost your mind.
ReplyDeleteI hope the bird's okay. I rescued one from a bad hail storm, but I didn't take it home. I just moved it out of the raining, icy death we call weather here and put it under an awning. Then I had to go to work. I'm pretty sure the momma bird came a little bit later.
Thanks for that encouragement Scott. It means a lot coming from someone who has actually reached that finish line.
DeleteThe bird is doing surprisingly well. She's healthy, active, and super friendly. Today she got stuck behind the stove during her morning "exercise." Now I have to figure out what we're going to do with a tame sparrow.