My Current Novel In Progress: January Update

I am making progress in my current manuscript, and today I wrote 421 new words (and spent time drawing images from the text). As some of you know, I often draw the images from my stories on a notebook in order to help me visualize places or explore the story. I'll post a pic or two to the Tumblr later today.

This update marks my first update in a few months. This year's work is simple. I will finish and polish this current manuscript. For my previous project, I capped the work at 85,000 words, and I think I will need a smiler constraint for this work. I don't have that number yet. My writing sessions are not generating long word counts, and I think I need to make my way forward with more ease in order to not lose momentum.

In essence, I have got to keep writing. With a sizable body of work, I can set some limits to it later on. I will make this decision in February.

For now, I am working in what I feel is my most challenging project to date. This one feels ambitious, in terms of the level of language I want to achieve, but also its potential success to go to market. Wish me luck, Gentle Readers.

My surroundings have helped my writing on this project. As I write this, I am looking out onto the streets of Berlin, and I couldn't feel better about having access to this city while writing this novel. This is a big year for my writing goals.

On the back burner I have more query work happening, since I am still looking for agent representation for my previously written works. As a companion piece to all this writing, I am training for a half marathon. To me, writing and running are companion activities, so we can easily say that 2012′s goals are not modest.

I have missed you, Gentle Readers. My apologies for being gone for so long.

Now I must return to my manuscript, which is currently 9,083 words long.