A measly 210 words yesterday. But I had a lovely day, which really should count for something. The Food & Wine Festival was perfect–beautiful weather, delicious food, terrific level of people. Some of the food stands had no lines at all and none of them had such long lines that I immediately lost interest in the food, which has happened before.

However not drinking alcohol for three months meant that a couple glasses of wine, followed by a flute of champagne, went straight to my head. I was buzzed when we got home and not at all inclined to get back to writing. Instead, I played with the dogs and went to bed early. Then proceeded to not sleep. I woke up congested and coughing, alas. I knew I would, but it’s the price I chose to pay for my yesterday.

Today I am going to write, but I think I’m going to try a new strategy. Since Ghosts, I’ve never written out of order. With Ghosts, the first things I wrote were actually the sex scene and the scene with the little boy and the swing, but I wound up seriously having to rewrite them, because they didn’t fit in the final book the right way. I decided then not to do that again, especially because keeping track of my Word documents got difficult. But I’m using yWriter for this project and it’s designed for that kind of flexibility. It will be really easy to mix and match scenes as I need to. So today and tomorrow, I’m going to be trying to write whatever comes to me, whatever scene is in my head, without worrying about the linear direction of the book. I’m hoping that writing that way will get me some higher word counts, instead of getting stuck when I have to make important decisions. (Example of said decisions: who can understand a ghost whose native language is Arabic? Does Akira speak all languages of all ghosts? Do ghosts understand one another automatically?)

Goal for today: eh. Lots of words but without pressuring myself? That feels like a good goal. But it’s Day 8 and if I’m going to hit the finish line, it’s time for a couple really good word count days. I hope Cam and Grace will oblige!