He came in alone, leaving the guards in the hallway outside, and closed the door gently behind him.

Words today: 2,138

Total thus far: 46,788

And, yes, I worked on Magebane, too. Didn’t take any new photos today, but here’s a nice sunset photo from the other day! (All of these photos I’ve been posting on my “first sentence I wrote today” posts were taken with my BlackBerry Storm, by the way…not sure if I’ve mentioned that or not.)

And then the gate to the inner city opened, and what he saw drove all other thoughts from his head.

Words today: 1,998

Total thus far: 44,650

I’m officially past the 200th page of the manuscript, if it were printed in standard manuscript format, which of course it has not been and may never be, everything being done by email these days. Anyway, it’s steaming along pretty nicely.

This afternoon I wrote in a new location, the Hotel Saskatchewan Radisson Plaza, both in the Monarch Lounge (from which I had a view of the work being done on the federal government building on the corner of Victoria Avenue and Scarth Street-Photo 1) and upstairs on the deserted convention floor (Photo 2), which  had the benefit of being very quiet. That was all Magebane rewriting work.

Tomorrow…much of the same!

The much-diminished caravan of Freefolk Clan Diannan had only been on the road for an hour the next morning when the attack came.

Words today: 2,277

Words thus far: 42,652

A good morning’s work. I’m getting close to 200 manuscript pages on this story. I think it’s going to need considerable pruning when I get to rewriting, but the plot is advancing well.

I spent the mid-day wearing my editor-of-Fine-Lifestyles-Regina hat, then turned into Lee Arthur Chane in the afternoon and worked on Magebane. I’m still (again) rewriting more than writing, but I really think I’ve got my plot demons licked this time. (Sounds like a fantasy-novel curse, actually. “Oh, go lick a demon!”) So good progress there, too.

Tonight I watched The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl (or is it the other way around?) with my daughter, then we played Barbies before bed. (Major Daddy brownie points! Score!) The movie, by the way, wasn’t half bad. I’d have adored it as a 10-year-old. My daughter liked it.

Science column tomorrow, otherwise it’ll be a rinse-and-repeat of today.

Today’s photo: a decorative lamp. Because it was there, that’s why.

Imlinn stood on the Freefolk trail leading north toward City Duodecim and studied the tracks he had found there by the light of the stars.

Words today: 2,068

Total thus far: 40,381

Good writing this morning, as a scene I hadn’t even realized I needed came to life and both told me something about a major character and helped explain a few things that needed explaining. I enjoyed it! Plus I was sitting outside on a beautifully warm morning with a cup of coffee. What’s not to love?

This afternoon I worked on Magebane, going back through it from the beginning (again) to see what I can salvage and what needs complete rewriting in view of what I really hope is the necessary plot corrections I dreamed up yesterday.

Concentration was somewhat hampered by the fact that Saskatchewan Roughrider football players, both present and past (from the 1989 Grey Cup championship team) were exchanging war stories just around the corner. Half the time I found what they were saying more interesting than what I was attempting to do. But I got some stuff done.

Today’s photo was taken with the built-in Webcam in the Samsung NC10, so that’s sort of what I looked like while I was writing, although I wasn’t always smiling like that…

“Follow the Freefolk,” Morran had told Illinen, and since the Freefolk moved every day, that meant he had to leave the Warren the very next night.

Words yesterday: 1,886

Total thus far: 35,102

People kept asking me what I did for my birthday. Well, I wrote, of course, what else? A nice chunk of Blue Fire in the morning, then in the afternoon I worked on Magebane: I’m back rewriting a chunk of stuff I did before, though, so no new sentence to report there. (Although I did write new sentences, but they were interspersed with old stuff so, by my own admittedly inconsistent and made-up-on-the-spot rules for this little blog feature, they do not count.)

But when he glanced over his shoulder, the light reflected in diamond points from the tossing wavelets, until it ended in utter blackness where the shore met the water.

Words Saturday: 1,238

Total thus far: 34,876

I was writing on the deck of the Temple Gardens Mineral Spa in Moose Jaw, watching people (my wife and daughter among them) soaking in the hot mineral water of the outdoor portion of the pool. As the only fully dressed person, fully dry person in sight and the only one typing on a glowing screen in the gathering dusk, I was probably fairly conspicuous. On the other hand, I was a writer writing during the Festival of Words, a major Moose Javian event. The hotel should have paid me just for sitting there and providing an authorial ambiance!

“You think he might still be alive?”

Words yesterday: 2,052

Total thus far: 33,214

From Magebane (yes! I’m moving forward again!):

The mysterious figures still waited there in the dark.

Words yesterday: 873

Total thus far: 33,638

Amlinn slept through the night without waking and only found out about the Nightdweller patrol when she went to breakfast in the morning.

Words yesterday: 1,252

Total thus far:  31,162

Not sure they were very successful words: my writing session, at the Atlantis coffee shop (see yesterday’s view-while-I-wrote photo, above) was interrupted by an annoying nosebleed brought on by a violent sneeze, which was brought on by…well, who knows; sunlight, probably. Anyway, the nosebleed wasn’t really anything major, but it lasted about 15 minutes and then, of course, you worry about it starting up again.

In the afternoon I was out at the Wascana Country Club again, working on Magebane.  And I know I’ve said this before, but now I really do think I’m ready to proceed onward from where I’ve been stalled–starting today, I hope!

Why, yes, I have another photo to go with the afternoon’s work, as well.

Most of the new verbiage (also some nounage, and a bit of adjectivage–I try to be sparing with the adverbiage) was on Blue Fire.  Yesterday’s first sentence was:

Illinen crouched in the darkness outside the Freefolk camp, watching the guards and the boy they called “Priest-Apprentice,”  until Penrod howled the signal to slip away.

Today’s first sentence/paragraph:

Illinen had heard of the Watchers, scouts scattered along a line a day’s travel west of the Great Warren, hidden inside camouflaged shadow-shelters, peering out through pinholes, risking eyesight and more to make sure the Daydwellers did not come near the center of the Nightdwellers’ kingdom.

Words the past two days: 4,517

Total thus far: 29,908

Magebane I think I’ve got figure out at last–my big plot breakthrough of Saturday morning turned out to not be quite as definitive as I’d liked, but further thought yesterday has, I think, brought everything much clearer. So new stuff is finally happening there, though I don’t have a First Sentence I Wrote Today for it today. Maybe tomorrow.

Oh, and the photos? First one is what I saw while writing yesterday at the Atlantis coffee shop at the corner of Victoria Avenue and Hamilton Street in downtown Regina, the second is what I saw this morning while writing at the Aegean coffee shop just a block further north along Hamilton.

It wore a scrap of green cloth as a shift and had yellow yarn for its hair.

Words today: 2,234

Total thus far: 25,390

I didn’t do any writing over the weekend of the sitting-at-the-keyboard variety, but after I woke up on Saturday morning but before I actually got out of bed I solved the big plot hangup that’s had me doing nothing but rewriting and rethinking on Magebane. That occasioned some more rewriting today, but I think either tomorrow or Wednesday I’ll finally start adding to its official word count as well.