Work in Progress: The Turners

Progress report:

Last time looked at: 7/19/14

Last actual wordage added: 7/19/14

Pages added 7/19/14: 1

Current page count: 16

Estimated final page count: 250-300

Deadline: None. Purely speculative.

Comments: Aunt Lucy is telling Steve what happened to his biological parents.

Yes, I’m dredging up even more old projects. In fact, I’m planning to go through everything I have progress reports on and see what’s what.

Word count: 4,092

Work in Progress: Pentagram Squadron

Progress report:

Last time looked at: 7/19/14

Last actual wordage added: 7/19/14

Pages added, 7/19/14: 1

Current page count: 5

Estimated final page count: Damned if I know. 300, maybe?

Deadline: None.

Comments: Dug this out — I’m seeing just what I have in the way of unfinished stories, and this came up. I added half a page, really, not one, and the page-count didn’t go up because of a format change.

Jason’s lost contact with the airfield, and is just trying to ride out the storm.

Work in Progress: Tom Derringer and the Steam-Powered Saurians

Progress Report: Tom Derringer & the Steam-Powered SauriansTom Derringer & the Steam-Powered Saurians

Last time looked at: 8/15/17

Last actual wordage added: 8/15/17

Pages added, 8/15/17: 2

Current page count: 60

Estimated final page count: 250

Current word count: 15,062

Deadline: None. Will be self-published.

Comments: Went back and re-read and revised pieces to make sure my unplanned plot twist didn’t contradict anything prior. Added an all-new page as well as enough scattered earlier bits to extend what had gone before by a page.

Tom, Betsy, and Peter Cartwright are making plans.

Work in Progress: The Dragon’s Price

Progress report:

Last time looked at: 7/17/14

Last actual wordage added: 7/17/14

Pages added 7/17/14: 5

Current page count: 73

Estimated final page count: Probably about 400.

Deadline: None, not under contract.

Comments: Malborn and his companions have realized they were inadequately prepared for the trip to Dawnport, but are making the best of the situation.

When I dug out old files I discovered that ten pages of Stone Unturned had vanished, so I was a bit worried, but this one was just where I’d left it. It’s oddly pleasant to get back to it.

Word count: 18,877

Work in Progress: Tom Derringer & the Steam-Powered Saurians

Progress Report: Tom Derringer & the Steam-Powered SauriansTom Derringer & the Steam-Powered Saurians

Last time looked at: 8/14/17

Last actual wordage added: 8/14/17

Pages added, 8/14/17: 3

Current page count: 58

Estimated final page count: 250

Current word count: 14,752

Deadline: None. Will be self-published.

Comments: Got back to work on this partly so as not to focus entirely on Elfshot. (You haven’t yet seen any progress reports on that one.) I’ve been busily working out plot and background and characters for Elfshot, but I don’t want to get obsessed with it and neglect other stuff.

I went back through all of Tom Derringer and the Steam-Powered Saurians, did some minor revisions (largely to get Peter Cartwright’s voice more consistent, but also to get the timeline straight and match what was really happening in 1884), then finally got past where I’d been stalled for months.

And I surprised the hell out of myself with a heretofore-unplanned plot twist. I think that somewhere in the back of my head I knew this was coming, which is why I was stuck on page 55 for so long, waiting for this to emerge. Peter Cartwright, originally intended to be a very minor character, looks as if he’ll be taking on a much larger role.

Good to be moving forward again!

(And by the way, I assume everyone reading this knows that Tom Derringer in the Tunnels of Terror is out.)

Work in Progress: My Neighbor Fred

Progress report:

Last time looked at: 7/14/14

Last actual wordage added: 7/14/14

Pages added 7/14/14: 2

Current page count: 6

Estimated final page count: 400?

Deadline: None.

Comments: Good grief — four and a half years since I actually added a page? (‘d tinkered with it a couple of times since then.)

Wayne and Fred are working out how to report a problem without involving Fred.

Work in Progress: Assassin in Waiting

Progress report:

Last time looked at: 7/11/14

Last actual wordage added: 7/11/14

Pages added 7/11/14: 4

Current page count: 30

Final page count: Maybe 350?

Deadline: None. Speculative.

Comments: This is interesting; my comments last time said, “Burren has withdrawn from the Red Chamber, as matters of state such as are being discussed there are none of his concern. After refreshing himself, he has settled in the Falcon Parlor.”

That’s not in any surviving draft I’ve located so far. It also doesn’t match my memory. And the page-count doesn’t match — the progress report says I had 27 pages, but the file I’m working on had 26.

I’m not sure whether I lost a page, or threw some stuff out. Thinking about it, I’d guess I threw out a few pages; I have a vague recollection of stuff about eating that I decided wasn’t advancing the story and removed.

This is what comes of leaving stuff untouched for so long.

Anyway, I wrote four pages tonight. I had stopped on page 26 right after Dalvos and Orivan left the Red Chamber for a private discussion, and have now written a conversation where Sorden Garthis (who had appeared before but didn’t have a name until tonight) asks Burren a few friendly questions about his connections with the royal family.

This story seems determined to have lots of short chapters; I think I’m nearing the end of Chapter Four already. Chapter Five will be set a few days later.

Haven’t decided whether Aldir will make it in time for the funeral.

Word count: 7,643

Work in Progress: Queen of the Night

Progress report:

Last time looked at: 7/8/14

Last actual wordage added: 7/8/14

Pages added, 7/8/14: 1

Current page count: 18

Estimated final page count: Damned if I know. 50? 100? 200?

Deadline: None.

Comments: Yes, I’m working on this again after almost a six-year hiatus. (I had no idea it had been that long!) I’m not sure whether the discrepancy in page-count is the result of a format change (I’m not working on the same computer I had in ’08, or with the same software), or whether I added a couple of pages somewhere in there and didn’t record it, or what.

Ali has just involuntarily demonstrated the truth of her story. Dan had convinced himself it couldn’t be true, but at least he’d heard it; Sue is caught completely off-guard.

Word count: 4,695

Work in Progress: On A Field Sable

Originally posted July 7, 2014:

Progress report:

Last time looked at: 7/7/14

Last significant wordage added: 7/7/14

Pages added 7/7/14: 3

Current page count: 235, not counting notes, outline, cut material, etc.

Estimated final page count: Probably over 400.

Deadline: None. Purely speculative.

Comments: I went back and did some revising, which involved throwing out part of what I wrote last week — not much, just a couple of short paragraphs.

I’ve moved forward about a day and a half so far in this chapter. Mareet is now playing the social butterfly.

Word-count: 63,325 (does not include notes, unrevised outtakes, etc.)

Work in Progress: Beyond the Gate

Originally posted to SFF Net July 19, 2013:

Progress report:

Last time looked at: 7/18/13

Last actual wordage added: 7/18/13

Pages added 7/18/13: 3

Current page count: 6

Estimated final page count: About 300-400

Deadline: None. Purely speculative. Started it on a whim.

Comments: So this is something I started on a whim last week which now meets my minimum standard for being a work in progress. I am embarrassed to admit that the idea for it came to me while watching “Sharknado,” and was so compelling I started writing it on the netbook I keep by the living room couch.

The basic premise is that Eric’s mother is an eccentric physicist who has accidentally opened a portal into another universe, and Eric has to go and rescue her from the natives of that world. (Eric’s an only child; his father is on assignment overseas somewhere.)

I wrote the first page during “Sharknado,” two more pages somewhere in the intervening time, and then three pages tonight; the fact that I had more than two pages and the file had been open for a week makes this an official work in progress.

It’s first-person YA. Eric’s fifteen.

Word-count: 1,366