I have finally made time to write my monthly blog post about my fiction writing efforts for the previous month. I have been extremely busy writing, editing, critiquing and being sick. Yep, my ulcerative colitis has come back at the wrong time, but when is a good time for it?

Fiction Writing.

I continued writing my novel, adding another 8549 words. I am very close to the end of the first draft, so it was with great reluctance that I stopped to write a short story I had committed to finish by the end of August.

I started the short story on the 17^th of August, hoping to finish it before attending the Melbourne Writers Festival at the end of the month. At the end of August, I had written 5,582 words, and it was still nowhere near finished. The story is for a Christmas anthology created by members of the Australian Writer’s Forum.

So, all up, I wrote 14,031 words for the month, which is not quite the average of 500 words a day that I am aiming for. I met my quota of 500 words a day on only 23 days. I have now written about 129,000 words of the novel.

Critiquing.

I critiqued another story for critters.org and then committed to critiquing a whole novel on Critters. Fortunately, the writer writes much shorter manuscripts than I do, with it being 66,000 words. By the end of the month, I had critiqued the first six chapters, about 10,000 words.

Reading.

I finished reading the very good classic; I am Legend, by Richard Matheson. It is one of the original apocalyptic novels. In it, a virus decimates the population, leaving one lone survivor to battle vampire-like creatures. It was made into at least two films, one recent one starring Will Smith and the much better The Omega Man. The novel is very different from both films. Although written 60 years ago, the story still packs a punch. I then started reading Dust, the third book in Hugh Howey’s apocalyptic Wool series.

Melbourne Writers Festival.

I went to the festival for the third year in a row. The only science fiction author I saw on a panel kept apologising for his book being science fiction, so I did not buy it. I learnt a bit from a panel with the editors of Peter Carey and Jonathan Franzen (I’ve read several of both author’s books.) The best author talk I went to was by mistake. The festival organisers changed the venue without telling me, but my ticket still got me in to see Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket). He was there promoting a novel for adults called We Are Pirates, and with a title like that, I just had to buy it. Overall, the festival was not as good as the two previous years. I hope to write more about it in upcoming posts.

Divine Writing.

I had one non-fiction article published on Divine this month, about a casting call for an Australian web-series Aliens Vs Crips, where four people with disabilities try to survive an alien invasion.

I am starting to feel a bit more like a writer who is actually doing more than dreaming about becoming a novelist. July has been my best writing month this year, as shown in the graph. I wrote 17,127 words of my novel in the month, an average of 552 words per day. And I reached my target of 500 words or more on all but two days of the month. Unfortunately, that means that once I met the quota, I did not usually write much more. The most words I wrote in a day was 821.

I have now written about 120,000 words of the novel. I had hoped to have the first draft finished this month, but my characters continue to resist making the inevitable decision to abandon their search and get to the climax. They’re not as bad as climate change deniers, though. At the moment, they are having an argument, and the pro-keep-on-searching characters are making a lot of sense—too much sense for them to just quit looking.

My characters obviously don’t care that I have committed to writing a short story for a Christmas collection, the first draft of which needs to be done by the end of August. So it looks like after this week, I might have to stop the novel writing for a couple of weeks and get onto the short story. This bothers me as I am so close to the end of the novel; I just want to get its first draft finished. But at least I have a good idea for the story.

Critiquing.

Once again, this month, I critiqued four stories for critters.org. The stories I critiqued were mostly by beginning writers, so my critiques were longish; two were over 1200 words. I finally finished a critique of a story for the Australian Writers Forum that was delayed by technology problems in June.

Reading.

I read a bit more this month. I finished reading Amnesia by Peter Carey. It’s not his best novel, but it was still a good read with a great central character. He was a journalist/writer secreted away from the law as he wrote a biography of a woman who created a computer virus that released thousands of asylum seekers from their prisons. The premise suggests a thriller, but the book is more about discovering how her life motivated her to release the virus. I hope to get around to writing a review of it for this blog later this month.

I am currently reading a science fiction classic in Richard Matheson’s I am Legend. A book that was turned into the classic science-fiction movie The Omega Man and the not so good recent movie with the same title as the book.

Non-Fiction.

Yeah, I know these updates should be only about my fiction writing endeavours, but I have to plug my Divine articles whenever I get the chance. I have a new article up on Divine that is all about a fascinating exhibition on the human mind I had a look at why I was down in Melbourne a few months ago. I really recommend the permanent exhibition and my article about it.