615 Words, Aching Calves, and 'The Ocean Hunters'

I wrote 615 words today, and they were good words. My pace is slow with my sessions on this novel, but I am writing words almost every single day. That is progress.

I think I have a code name for this project. I am calling it "The Ocean Hunters". As some of you know, my code names often reflect the work, though obliquely. In this current draft, I am really feeling my way in there as if I were blindfolded, and I feel a bit anxious, nervous. This says to me that things are just where they should be in my writing process.

The days are grey here in Berlin, and I like it. Seeing the city in the daylight is my favorite thing. Berlin in the hours of 9 a.m. through 2 p.m. feels mine, and mine alone. Today I ran before my writing session, and I clocked 3 miles at a glacial pace, since I really went at it hard yesterday for four miles. Tomorrow is a day off from writing and that makes me very happy. I have to rest these legs, too.

I have not put writing sessions into my weekends in Berlin, but now that I am moving into my first draft in full, I will want to add Saturdays to my schedule. I still feel very behind on query work, and I must make this time up. My previously written novels are not going to sell themselves.

Today's writing soundtrack reveals a glance back at the past, through the prism of the remix. Book of Love put out some soft and warm pop back then, but their odd remix/mashup of Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls (a haunting AIDS-era anxiety dream) and Tubular Bells of "Exorcist" fame, made for the perfect cut as I myself hacked my way forward in this manuscript.