Mark Lee Taylor

This morning I finished the first draft of Foul Territory. It clocks in at between 61,000 and 62,000 words, which qualifies it as a novel. That's good news. My plan now is to ignore it for a couple of months, then haul it out and read it to myself. I'll make some additions, and some deletions (hopefully not too many of those) and have a second draft ready for review by some of my fellow writers sometime around the holidays. The final product should be ready for publication in

Progress on my second novel has reached a temporary roadblock. I said temporary! A few things are going on. First, I have another job, and this week I work 10:00-6:30, which gets me home around 8:00. I don't do much but sleep and work during this shift. Second, I'm at a point in the novel where the outline I've been working from is hazy, because at the time I wrote the outline, I wasn't sure how things were going to pan out. Now I know how they panned out, but I still have t

I reached 30,000 words today, about 115 pages double-spaced. Again, the story is progressing so quickly that I'm beginning to worry about it wrapping up too soon. I may have to go back and add a few chapters or flesh out the ones I have, or I may not end up with enough words to call it a novel. This is a new problem for me. In my first novel, I battled constantly against long-windedness, had to cut ruthlessly to get it down to its present size, which is still considered too l

I know I've been lax in my blogging, but I'll offer the same excuse. I've been working on the novel. I just reached 20,000 words, and it's really starting to take on a life of its own now. The story is taking me places I hadn't expected to go, and I'm having a whopping good time. Hope my readers enjoy it as much as I do. The story is progressing a bit more quickly than I expected, too. I estimate I'm roughly a third of the way through, and if that holds true, then the finishe

Sorry I haven't made any blog entries for a while. I've been concentrating on my second novel. You'd rather have me doing that anyway, no? I just hit 10,000 words on Novel 2, and it's coming along quite nicely. It's a bit more of a psychological thriller than Pebble, and hence a bit slower paced, but there's a hint of creeping menace that will keep my readers turning the pages. You might almost call it a mystery. Actually, I haven't yet figured out where to pigeonhole it, it'

I feel like I've been through a whirlwind. CD theme night with my buds on Friday night. Held myself to a single beer (although it was a Peg Leg, sort of like having two of most other beers) because I had to work the next morning. Sucked at pool as usual, but had a good time anyway. Home by a little after midnight. Work Saturday morning. How I loved that. 'Nuff said. Listened to the Terps on the radio on the way back from work, picked up my daughter, and got home just in time