Fiddlehead finds its beginning

Finally. And it's about damn time. Yes, yes - there was a Big Move and the house-buying and the settling-in and all that stuff, and I forgive myself for the utter lack of progress on anything writing-related for the last few months. But now it's time to quit forgiving. Now it's time to get busier than a one-legged woman in an ass-kicking contest.

Why? Because the deadline for a solid draft on this bad-boy is September 15. I have three months, y'all.

It looks terrifying, all typed out like that ... but it's really not. And frankly, I knew good and well that I'd end up writing this one in a short time frame - which is Reason Number One that I slashed my travel schedule like I did, and flat turned down any new projects for the rest of the year.

It's positively exhilarating - the idea of working on JUST THIS ONE THING for THREE WHOLE MONTHS, YAY! I haven't had the luxury of such focus in years. So brace yourself for metrics, baby! Daily ones. Sometimes boring ones. But real ones, from here on out.

Ahem.

Here's today's progress on my 19th century D.C. spy caper about a powerful Difference Engine that will end the Civil War - now with warhawk conspiracies, clockwork assassins, three presidents with more in common than they know, three disgraced spies with less in common than they think, and a Bonus! not-at-all mad scientist who can save the world if someone will just give him a chance:
Project: Fiddlehead
Deadline: September 15, 2012
New words written: 1669 (it's a start!)
Present total word count: 1669 words





Things accomplished in fiction: Prologue. A short one, yes - but it takes place in Danville at the Confederate Congress, where Sally Louisa Tompkins is being forcefully escorted off the floor and out of the building for telling the truth. Also, there are spies. So just trust me: It's pretty cool.

Darling du Jour:
"She knew them all, in some fashion or another. She’d received letters from many of them, begging with money, all the notes essentially the same: 'They say this man will die, but at the Robertson he may have a chance.'

When these men prayed to God, they prayed for her."Things accomplished in real life: Took mom, grandma, and great-aunt to breakfast and then sent them on their way to Iowa. Long story short - my mom is driving her mother and aunt from Florida to Iowa so the aunt can manage some business affairs up there; they stopped here overnight, and left a bit before lunchtime. It was an adventure in cat-herding, but with cute little old ladies instead of cats. Other than that, I didn't do much. The cute little old ladies really wiped me out.

Other: Well, I guess I did do one other ridiculous thing today - Tweet lots of pictures. One of my (several) Surprise!tomato plants (found in what used to be the garden, and now is an overgrown jungle in the backyard). Also some roses. And a "charm" of finches, which is apparently what such an adorable gathering is called. (Many of the finches are fluffy-feathered babies - we have several nests in the area, and the fledglings are just now learning their way around the world.) Man. I've got to quit being so boring on Twitter...