damn that grading thing

Losing valuable writing time to grading today... granted, this is theoretically why I get a paycheck from the college, but still. (And I "wasted" several hours knitting this week, too.)

I'm at 17000 words and counting. Don't have the exact count with me at the moment. Going pretty well - at least I'm not letting myself get massively behind this year. I learned my lesson writing 25K in three days at the end of the month in 2005. Not fun.

Writing at this speed reminds me of painting in my high school art class. First I block out the basic shape of a scene using dialogue (the underpainting), then I add character thought and movements and maybe a little detail here and there, and finish it with a gloss coat of description.

Back to the blank, white page...