Today's word count for Redeemer won't be the most impressive one ever.  But I also managed to write that short story I mentioned the other day, and it was about 1050 words, all told.  Not too bad.  It seems my short stories turn out either very short or very long, with nothing in between.  But I haven't really been writing short stories that long; it's something I started fairly recently to try to build up some credits before I start shopping around these two fantasy novels.  You may have noticed all of my recent credits are non-fiction.  I like non-fiction, but it isn't where my heart is.  So I need to start getting stories out there.  It's taking a little time, but I'm getting close.  I can feel it.  Anyway, today's counts:

Today's Words: 1287

Total Count So Far: 41,911

Hopefully one of these days before too long I'll be able to announce my first fiction sale.  And that, when it happens, should pretty much be proof that you can do it, too.  Fiction is frustrating; I find that I can sell non-fiction articles--especially articles about writing--as fast as I can write them, but I haven't sold a story yet.  But I'm not doing too bad, all thing considered, I'm only on my second short story, and it's only been two places.  The first editor told me the writing was very good but the story was too traditional for them, and the second editor told me I have a real flair for plot and character but there was too much exposition up front (and he's right, too.  This particular story I started about ten years ago, stuck on a shelf, and just finished recently.  I didn't change the beginning at all, and I really needed to.)  I've always had trouble with short stories, because my ideas all tend to be booklength, not easily compressed into 5000 words.  But I'm learning.  I guess it's a learning process for us all.  Probably, there's an article in that, and probably, if I write it, it will sell right away. 

And that's great, I really like selling my articles.  But right now I'm really focused on selling a story.  Right now, I'm focused on selling one.  I'll worry about getting more after that.  And having X number of stories sold to magazines and webzines can only help when it's time to send out these books; I'll have something of a track record in fiction.

So there's my long term plan.  Pretty exciting stuff.