Mo' Special

Well, I didn't get to write quite as much as I wanted during the Christmas holiday time. Spent a few days in Bartlesville with the old people and such, but I still managed to sneak away now and again to the computer room to peck out a few words. Deep Water now stands at 109,023 words.

It's interesting comparing the story that is now unfolding with the original version of Deep Water that I wrote back in 2001. They are very different stories in many ways, and it reveals some interesting things about how I have changed since then both as a writer and as a person. Many things about it are much darker and more violent this time, but the emotional arc of the characters is more believable. It's a much longer story as well. I tend to linger on things longer than I did back then. Not sure if that's a good thing or not, but that's how it is. I also feel much more confident crafting prose than I used to. Back then, I tortured my way through paragraphs, struggling to make sentences sound good and flow well. I write with greater confidence now (and, as a result, write much faster) and save all the grief about the prose for the rewriting process. We'll see how it all turns out.

So there you go. Live the dream.