Weighing In Week #1

I've decided to use Tuesdays here on the blog to hold myself accountable. Each week I'm going to toss out the facts and figures of my goals.

December 23 I weighed 293 pounds. Today TUESDAY January 4th I weigh 285.

I finished one novel this week. A free mystery/suspense e-book from Barnes and Noble titled Deadly Sanctuary and written by Sylvia Nobel.

As of today I have not sent of any submissions or queries on any of my writing. I hope to report otherwise by next Tuesday.

On January 1st, my novel in progress, an as yet untitled humor story involving a woman who believes her life is being ruined by sex and the over-rampant libidos of the world surrounding her stood at a word count of 12,000. Today that word count is up to 15,200.

At my current pace of 750 words per day it will take me approximately 114 days to finish the novel. I should point out that I tend to do lots of editing as I write so while the finished product will not be a polished draft it will be tighter than a rough or normal first draft.

114 days from now the date will be April 28th so I am setting a goal of May 1st to finish a draft of this current novel.

Until I arrive at a title I will refer to my WIP novel as the bull semen story as that particular substance plays a substantial role in the characters lives.

Tuesday also happens to be Two Line Tuesday a blog feature started by the fabulous Women of Mystery so I am going to try and share a few lines from what I'm working on. Today I am sharing more than a few but here is a scene from my latest chapter.

A skinny woman with flaming red hair sat down in the seat directly across from Ty. Two kids took the places on each side of her. The older, a girl, had clammy, sallow skin, runny, pink-rimmed eyes, and a bored expression as if being sick was commonplace for her. The younger, a boy with unkempt hair the same shade as his momma’s, was covered with freckles the color of old pennies.

Ty watched the boy, who couldn’t be much older than five or six, chomp on a piece of gum way too big for his mouth. His own kids were three years apart in age. About the same difference as these two.

He tried to remember if Heather had ever had to do this, take the kids to the emergency room by herself, while he’d been off fishing a tournament. She must have. Cade had broken his arm twice, and like all children, they’d both gotten sick from time to time.

The redheaded boy took the gum from his mouth and began rolling it on the arm of his chair until it resembled a long pink snake. Next he stuck it back in his mouth and chewed some more. The mother never noticed, but Ty couldn’t help wonder how many germs the kid had just ingested. Of course, kids did all kinds of things when you weren’t paying attention -- like grow up.