Te Araroa Book Progress Volume 1

My month-long writer residency at Elsewhere Studios wrapped up what seems to be ages ago (May 30) and once again I thought I'd give you a long overdue post with some quick and dirty stats. While my book is currently collecting dust, I made major progress during my "artist in residence" program at at Elsewhere Studios in Paonia, Colorado.

In my 24 days living in the "Gingerbread House," I typed a whopping 24,505 words, which translates to 72 pages (Word, double space, Times, 12pt)! Typically, I wrote 1,000 words a day, working for about 5 hours give or take. Amazingly, I only had 3 days of writer's block (and only consumed 17 ounces of chocolate the whole month).

I seriously don't know how people wrote books on typewriters ... without the Internet. Gasp! 

Two of my 3 "roommates" were writers, so we really capitalized on our skills and participated in a few community events. Not only did we host the regular open houses and read our work at Elsewhere, there was open mic night, a writer's group, a radio reading and a workshop teaching others about writing.

The 3 Elsewhere writer residents participated in the radio show, "One Woman's Perspective" on the local "mountain-grown" radio station (KVNF). We each read an excerpt. 

Overall, Elsewhere was an awesome experience, I am in love with residences and I am ecstatic with the headway I've made. This brings my book grand total to 33,620 words, or 106 pages. I believe I am 70% done with the "writing" portion of my book. I am hoping to do a little more writing this fall and winter to potentially finish the words on paper portion. Let's not talk about the revision process though. Baby steps.