Tesla’s Travels – Completed
Too tired to really write anymore. Tesla’s Travels is completed and moving to editing. It is currently 71,597 words. Editing will have that number fluctuating heavily.
Added to post three days later: The final chapters were emotionally an intellectually draining. It is weird to spend so much time developing fictional characters and then lose them. Like a farmer, I sit there and plant seeds and sometimes – by the end of the book – I choose not to grow that plant. I will miss the characters in Tesla’s Travels, and I now see the draw in writing serialized work. Because, the author, gets to see their children over and over again. But, I can always visit them. So pick up a book and visit your favorite world!
Progress Report for July 13, 2014
I completed my summer course – for my MBA – on Wednesday. On Thursday, I wrote another flash fiction piece Dipper which sits at 992 words. This week, I finished reading another book: As I Lay Dying. All in all, it has been a very productive week for my writing and reading. There are only three chapters left in Tesla’s Travels, withthe second to last chapter being my hardest literary challenge to date. The goal is to have the initial rough draft of Tesla’s Travels completed by Wednesday. I want two days of time to edit before I have to compete in a contest on July 20th. Finally, I have decided to enter a secondary contest that will no longer take submissions at the end of July, which means, I need three 500 word flash fiction pieces in a very short period of time. One is half done, and the other two aren’t even close to being formulated.
Progress on Tesla’s Travels
Last progress report I had written 60,147 words. As of today, I am at 65,426 words. Thus, I wrote 5,279 words this last week. By next weeks report, I will be done with the rough draft.
Progress Report for July 7th, 2014
I apologize for the delay, it is summer time and that means going off the grid. I am back on the grid, as you can see, and I returned with a short story but no updates to Tesla’s Travels. Tesla’s Travels, sits at its current place from last week but that is due to a heavy focus on my new short story (Allure) and class presentation in two days.
A little information about Allure: it sits at a hefty 976 words, is considered flash fiction, and is in first person past tense. I have decided to play with the flash fiction format (under 1000 words) and see how dense I can make a story. Sadly, I am not adding Allure to the site yet. When I published a short story to my site, it makes them less desirable to a magazine because they are no longer unpublished. This makes magazines skeptical about paying for a piece that is available for free on my personal website. Thus, I decided that all new short story’s will sit in limbo for five weeks and go to a single magazine that best fits their style. If I hear from the magazine sooner, I will publish or give an update. It is killing me – I want to release it – but I need the publishing credit for credibility with an agent. I apologize because there haven’t been many short stories posted, and now I am holding them back from you – my audience. Once again sorry! Time for bed, thank you again for your support and have pleasant dreams.
Also, I completed reading Welcome to the Monkey House it was wonderful. Great way to get into Vonnegut’s different styles (it is a collection of short stories).
Progress Report for June 29th, 2014
It is odd, I damaged my wrist last week and it isn’t still up to speed but is getting better since I wear a split at night. Currently, I am writing with a splint on my left hand and spending most of my time on: school work, the website, reading, outlining, writing, and submissions to magazines… and having fun when it crops up. As such, the numbers for this progress report will be slim, because I am only writing when my wrists feel normal.
So, where am I and what am I doing? After a day of outlining, I have the rest of Tesla’s Travels outlined and it will be about seven more chapters. I say about, because I will split chapters up if they are too long. Personally, I am a fan of shorter chapters because it provides time for reflection on what was recently read. I find it more readable and – as a story teller – my job is to tell a story.
I joined a book club. The book that was initially chosen was As I Lay Dying (I am pushing for us to read Candide next). Unlike my friends, I have to video conference into the club because I am one hundred eighty miles away. At the same time, for my reading list, I am enjoying Welcome to the Monkey House by Vonnegut. While, I said I will never advertise on this website. I don’t believe discussing reading is an advertisement (because I never state my opinion or endorse them) but an important aspect of my progress because all writers should be constantly reading new and different things.
So here are the hard and fast numbers for Tesla’s Travels. Previous amount of words: 55,152. Current words: 60,147 Which means I wrote 4995 in the last two weeks with an injury. Not a record breaker, but I should be done with the rough draft in the next week depending on how my vacation time goes. Have a wonderful night, this guy has to thumbs and is going to bed.
Changes to the Short Story Section
Some people may have noticed that Gopple’s main landing page has been changed (which would be impressive because I just changed it fifteen minutes ago after drafting this post). While the original release is still available, I have modified the short story and submitted it to a magazine. The goal of the short story section was supposed to show my experimentation with writing and growth as a writer. However, magazines want exclusivity when it comes to publishing a short story and that is why I didn’t post the newly revised version of Gopple for the public. Once the entire process is done, I will publish the new version of Gopple on the website. For reference, this process will take between three and four months. If they accept it, I will update the site with when it will be available in the magazine and when I can publish to my website. Thank you in advance for understanding.
Progress Report for June 22, 2014
Took a week off of writing to focus on school. I also finished reading Nine Stories. Back to studying.
Proceeding: 14-28 (Net Neutrality), My Comment
As a content provider who uses the internet to deliver information to my audience, I took the opportunity to comment on the FCC’s proceeding 14-28 or its more common name: Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet. Anyone is allowed to submit a comment on the proceeding, and I suggest you take the time to add your comment to the pile. Below, you will see my entire comment to the FCC. Or you can follow this link: “Theodore’s Comment to the FCC” and read it on the FCC’s website. For the record, anyone who knows me knows already knows this, I am paranoid so realize that both the address and email are fake.
Progress Report for June 15, 2014
Another busy week, so this will probably be a short writeup of the work I completed in the last week. The week has been busy, between work and my summer class, I haven’t had much time to write. But, the goal is to write at least 10,000 words a week. So, I stayed in and worked on Tesla’s Travels for all of Saturday and Sunday. That is why this post is so late in the day, I literally just finished up the thirty third chapter. Also, I was able to finish reading another book: The Suicide Shop.
But I am tired, so let’s get to the numbers for the week. Tesla’s Travels is now sitting at 55,152 words and is 33 chapters long. That means, I wrote 10,884 words in the last two days. I think, based on the outline, the rough draft will be completed in a week or two. Then to editing!
Commitment to your Privacy
Over the last week, I decided to spend some money and improve my website. This was for two reasons: 1) make it more accessible with quicker load times, and 2) increase my audience’s privacy. In order to do that, I upgraded my hosting server with more “stuff” (super technical term) to handle requests and queries. Also, I have a few more tricks to improve the speed of delivery but didn’t enable these tricks, because they will probably take a hefty time configuring and testing. If you feel it is moving to slow, go to the Contact Me page, send me an email, and I will enable them.
But here are the great improvements to you! (more…)
Progress Report for June 8, 2014
This one will be short, because I am in Chicago with friends and took a break to write up a quick post. So, in the last week I have finished reading Light in August then started and finished The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea. Being home, it is hard to focus on writing because there are constant distraction.
However, I was able to get Tesla’s Travels to 28 chapters and 44,268 words. That means, I wrote 10897 in the last week.