Time for another update on my writing progress. As a quick reminder, I'm working through a first edit of a rough draft of my fantasy adventure novel, The Five Elements.

Here's where I'm at: I reduced the total pages from last week's 381 to 376, and the currently edited page went up from 343 to 348. That gives me a total increase of 10 pages over last week and results in 28 pages left to go to finish.

<aside>I'm curious, how many pages do most people get through in a week? I'm not talking about full-time writers—surely they do more. But for those of us holding down regular jobs and who "write when we have time", what's a 'good' number of pages/week, either edited or new? Some people say 1,000 words/day is a good target for new material. That works out to 4 pages/day, or a max of 21 pages/week (which might vary, of course, if you take weekends off). Editing is a different story (no pun intended), IMO. Sometimes it goes fast. Other times, not so much. So, what are your opinions?</aside>

I do have to bear one thing in mind: I somewhat significantly changed, in my mind, how this story is going to end. That means as I continue to move forward fairly large pieces are getting rewritten as opposed to just making sure my grammar is correct or sentence structure is fine-tuned and polished.

In graphical format, here's my current progress:

Here we have it in percentage form:

I'm at 92.5% complete with 28 pages remaining.

Gotta get back to it now. Another update next week.

It's been a busy week of writing, work, a little cycling, and, of course, web browsing. Enjoy the fruits of my labor (or, the labor of others, I should say).

A Fleet of 1500 Cloud-Seeding Ships Could Stop Global Warming, Say Scientists
Using a fleet of 1500 wind-powered ships that cruise the oceans autonomously, spraying massive plumes of salt water into the air, we could reverse the effects of global warming within years.

How To Cook Children: A Grisly Recipe Book by Martin Howard and Colin Stimpson
What a yummy title, especially if you're a witch by the name of Esmelia Sniff who draws children to her gingerbread house as a means to cook her favourite delicacy with her favourite ingredient.

A Beam of Gamma Radiation Aimed Precisely at Earth
A few months ago, astronomers began studying the brightest explosion ever observed: A massive gamma radiation burst that shot out of a star as it was collapsing into a black hole.

See the Submerged Ruins of Cleopatra's Palace in Egypt's Underwater Museum
In a few years, you may be able to see Alexandria the way it once was — deep beneath the sea. The areas of classical Alexandria that contained the ancient world's biggest library along with Cleopatra's palace have sunk beneath the waves, but now it looks as if the United Nations may step in and help Egypt show off these structures in a unique underwater museum.

Robert J. Sawyer: UFOs and SF
It's not that UFOs are taboo per se, it's just that (perhaps paradoxically) they're not considered part of science fiction. Rightly or wrongly, most SF readers and editors have decided that whatever UFOs have been reported have nothing to do with extraterrestrial life.

Passion and the Razor's Edge of Rejection
A writer contacted Jessica Faust with a situation where the writer’s agent “suggested she remove a chapter in the novel, and while the author was concerned, she did it anyway (and made some revisions). Now editors are rejecting the book and the author is feeling that removing this chapter was part of the problem.

NOTE: While Tor is making two e-books available simultaneously as free downloads (this one and Dogland, by Will Shetterly), I am splitting them up for purposes of my Tor Free E-books Giveaway series.

Tor has reinstated their free e-book giveaway program wherein they will make available for download one free e-book per month. I don't think this continuation of the program has an end date currently, so enjoy. The only catch is that you will have to join their site as a member in order to get the downloads, and each e-book will only be available for a limited amount of time.

This month's free giveaway is War of the Oaks, by Emma Bull.

Emma Bull writes fantasy and science fiction. You can read her blog here. Her bibliography (or this one) is fairly extensive, with seven novels to her name and an extensive list of short stories and anthologies. Something else of interest: she is the executive producer of Shadow Unit, an online series that follows the format of a television-style show but appears to be delivered exclusively via the written word.

She is married to Will Shetterly. Together they have scored an odd historic first: they’re the first married couple to each have a novel on the same final World Fantasy Awards ballot for one of the field’s top awards. Both Emma’s Territory and Will’s The Gospel of the Knife are finalists for Best Novel.

See the complete list of Tor's Free E-book Giveaways.

A funny thing happened yesterday. I had begun editing chapter 22, which just so happens to be the second to last chapter in my book. Because of some scene shuffling, re-ordering, and previous edits, I had to change the way in which the chapter starts. I was really hoping for a big writing day. What I got was borderline writer's block for much of my writing time, to the point where I was sitting at my desk, staring at the computer screen, and nothing was happening.

Now, I don't believe in writer's block. In my case, it wasn't even so much that I wasn't coming up with anything. It was that I wasn't coming up with what I wanted. In other words, starting the chapter wasn't the problem. The problem was that I couldn't figure out how to start it the way it needed to be started. It screamed for a very particular type of start, and I just wasn't coming up with it.

So, in order to combat this, I closed my laptop and did some other things around the house: played with the dogs, treated some ant hills that had popped up after last week's rain, had some lunch. Finally, I returned to my editing, but instead of hitting the computer again I took a pen and a notepad and went outside. The weather has been beautiful out here in Texas lately, so why not? I tried different openings, free-handing it until I finally came up with what I thought was "it". I went back inside, typed it in, and started to move on, only to realize it wasn't "it". But, somewhere in that process of getting away from the computer, it finally hit me. I had it! Amazingly, the beginning of the chapter flowed from my fingers across the keyboard and onto the screen like water gushing from a spigot. It was both a defining and satisfying experience all at once.

So, given that, where does that leave me in terms of progress? Unfortunately, even with yesterday's success, my progress was not great. Here it is:

I increased my current page editing from 332 to 343 while dropping the total page count from 385 to 381. Here's the graph:

Total percentage completion broke 90% (barely):

Total word count is now 111,995, down a lot from last week (114,564). That's probably the best news of all because it gets me more inline with what might be considered a saleable range. This is tempered a bit by the fact that I know I need to go back and add some more detail to one character in particular, possibly even giving him an additional scene or two of his own.

More progress next week, and I think a post discussing writer's block in more detail might be forthcoming.

Update (10/23/08): It looks like a winner had been selected and the contest come to a close.

While there's already a lot of buzz flying around about this, I thought I'd do my part by spreading the word anyway.

Jason Sanford, in honor of Interzone's acceptance of two of his stories, is holding a contest wherein he intends to give away a free 1 year subscription to Interzone.

Here's the entry criteria:

Any blogger in the United States is eligible to take part. Simply drop me an e-mail at lapthai (at sign) yahoo (dot) com with your blog's url and a few words to the effect that you want to take part in the contest. In order to showcase what Interzone has to offer, I'll e-mail you a PDF of my recently published Interzone story (thanks to Andy Cox for letting me do this; here are a few of the reviews my story has received). Don't worry. You don't have to review the story, although I won't protest if you do.

I think this is an incredible idea. It generates buzz about Sanford, his stories, and Interzone, all at the same time. Oh yeah, and it provides someone with a free 1 year subscription.

Good luck to all participants.

Shimmerzine is giving away for free their special one-time issue devoted to pirate stories edited by John Joseph Adams.

The editors of Shimmerzine have this to say:

In 2007, Dred Pirate John Joseph Adams, of the MS Fantasy and Science Fiction, commandeered the MS Shimmer for one special issue: the Pirate issue, released November 2007.

In honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, a holiday dear to our hearts, we’re making the electronic edition freely available. One day only: Plunder away!

The issue features fiction from James L. Cambias, Marissa K. Lingen, Jeremiah Tolbert, Mikal Trimm, and and half a dozen others. And don’t miss our piratical interview with the creator of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Illustrated throughout by James Owen.

Note the "one day only" part. Better get it today.

The latest batch of interesting stuff I came across this past week.

How Is the Universe Going to End?
As far as cosmic questions go, it's as good a one as any: When will our great universe cease to be, and shuffle our great^10^75-grandchildren off the mortal coil?

Vanity publishing – know the realities and grab the Maalox
“I’ve decided to self-publish my book.” My heart always sinks a degree when an author tells me this because it’s never a joyous decision, but one of defeat and resignation. How Many Fantasy Authors Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?
Bad jokes ahead.

The Wind-Swept Clouds of Mars
The Phoenix Lander look a series of photographs of the polar skies this week, and researchers have turned them into a short movie that gives you a shivery sense of what it would be like to stand under Martian skies.

The Final Visit to Hubble
On October 8th, Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to lift-off for a final visit to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About the Large Hadron Collider, via Rap
Science can be pretty weird, especially theoretical physics, but weirder still is watching someone rapping about the Large Hadron Collider.