The fun of being a traditionally published author. Every week I get to load up BookScan, which is essentially one company’s (NPD) guess at how many books I sold the previous week, based on...well, nobody knows really. It doesn’t include ebooks, which is the bulk of my sales, so instead I just get to laugh bitterly. And yet, for some reason, I still do it every week! Masochism may be a key author trait.

This is longer than my current New York Times Crossword streak.

Welcome new followers! Yes I write about Apple at @sixcolors and Macworld, and podcast about tech at @clockwise and @rebound, but I’m also a sci-fi novelist! The Galactic Cold War series is like Mission: Impossible meets John Le Carré *in space*. If that doesn’t whet your appetite, I don’t know what will. Pick up a copy—I’d sure appreciate it. Available at all fine bookstores, online and off: https://dmoren.com/writing/galactic-cold-war/

Am I the only one who gets this irritating bug where the Applications folder in my Dock has a progress bar stuck at 100%? (Although I've seen it stuck at 0% too.) I feel like I end up running `sudo killall Dock` at least once a day. Might be triggered by updates from the App Store installing in the background?

Annnnd, made it. 33,513 words in this draft since I started writing in earnest on January 3rd. That puts me about a third of the way through the manuscript, on pace to finish by my self-imposed deadline of April 1st. I’ve been averaging about 1500 words per writing day, which is a good, solid number. Honestly, the fact that I’ve been able to get words down on any day that I’m also watching the kid is, to me, amazing (and reassuring). Let’s see how February goes!

Started this week a bit in the hole for my manuscript word count, thanks to some poor nights of sleep, childcare obligations, and wrenching my neck while shoveling. But I picked up the pace in the back half, including a solid 2500+ today. Story’s coming together, and if I can get in a little bit of writing time this weekend, should be possible to hit my goal of roughly 1/3rd (33k) by the end of January.

Glad to see @pschiller here, even if he did go to the the rival high school on the other side of my town.

Uhhh, I know I mistyped that word, macOS, but it was not an invitation to one-up me.

Writing update: I haven’t exctly hit my targets the last couple weeks (I’ve been aiming for 2000 on Tue/Thu/Fri and 1000 on Mon/Wed because I also watch the kid those days), but I’m not too far off. I’ve passed the 20,000 mark and my goal’s to reach 33k, which would be about a third of the way through, by the end of the month. I think I can still pull that off. 🤞#writing