Happy New Year!

I'm back from the holiday vacation and have already flown through the first two and a half days of the new year. I was separated from my planning materials until late evening on the 1st, and we had to unload the car and unpack. In the spirit of last minute decisions, I finally picked a goal of 500,000 words by December 31, 2012 as of the 2nd. With my goal, I finished my tracking spreadsheets and decided what I'd start out with.

Today I've begun writing on my short story about an unwitting zombie, and hope to finish it tomorrow. I'm guessing it will be around 5,000 words in the first draft, given my penchant for long scenes even when trying to condense them. If I finish it tomorrow close to my estimated word count, I'll be pretty much on track so far! It's going a little slow because I'm handwriting it thanks to an undeniable urge to do so, but I'm going to go focus on it as soon as I'm done here!

I hope starting with a short story and being on track in the first week of the year will help me push through difficult times with the realization that I've already finished one story, quite an accomplishment for me! Then, I'm going to move on by going back to my latest NaNo story in order to finish it. That'll be two finished first draft projects under my belt before I start a larger project!

I still need to do outlining for the story I think I'm going to work on next, Lunch Meat. It's less serious than either of the others stories, with all of the characters based on my current or former friends, and pokes fun at the current batch of Twilight inspired books (and Twilight as well). It centers around two girls whose friend begins to date a mysterious stranger and the disappears. Eventually, they connect the stranger with other weird occurrences in their town and decide they have to take him down. I'm looking forward to this fun little romp, even if I decide not to ever revise it.

Current word count: 238
Goal by end of day: 2,500
Goal by end of tomorrow: 5,000