Here’s today’s progress report: Three rows of buffer inked, seven rows of Bonus Story pencilled (that’s 1.75 pages) and then 4 of those rows inked. Oh, and three rows of buffer colored. Considering how well I did yesterday, I should be happier with my performance, but I really can’t afford to be missing that 18-row minimum very often.

Scorecard: 11 days left, 186 rows to go…

(The good news is that with yesterday’s haul, the minimum, figured as an average of “rows to go” per “days left” is 16.9. )

I colored four rows this morning, and then had a great day at the Keep. I pencilled 12 rows, and inked 9 of them.

Back at home I realized that in order to have a productive day at the Keep on Thursday, I would be needing scripts. So I cranked out 8 rows of scripts for the bonus story.

4+12+9+8=33

It was a good day. A REALLY good day. Hopefully I didn’t burn out, because I need to have good day tomorrow.

The scorecard: 12 days left, 203 rows to go.

–Howard

Okay, I sat down just now with the calendar to check my math, and it turns out there’s more coloring to be done in order to get the buffer Con-worthy.

The full, no-contingency workload, then, is 236 rows, and that takes today’s 12 rows of scripting into account.

Which means that for the next 13 days I need to whip out 18 rows per day, and I need to find space to squeeze in an extra two rows on top of that.

The GOOD news is that it’s possible the Bonus Story will finish up after just 100 more rows, rather than 120. I’m not going to force it, though. It ends where it ends.

I was a little depressed today after I spent two solid hours at the computer scanning and tweaking before coloring, and found that I’d used half my Tuesday and gotten zero rows done.

(Tuesday afternoons and evenings I have a church gig, so Tuesday ends at 2:00pm for me.)

Oh, and I realized that there are two extra rows during the week of August 13th…*sigh*

Fortunately, there was scripting to be done, and I got my game on. I blasted out 12 rows of scripts (8 days) in about 90 minutes, which means that on Wednesday I should have no problem hitting my 15 row minimum. I may even blow past it.

I can’t afford to have too many days where I fall below 15. Tomorrow I need to hit 18 (9 rows pencilled and inked will do nicely), and I may shoot for 24 by throwing in some coloring before I head down to the Keep for the pencil-and-ink process. That kind of productivity will nicely lower the minimum required workload for the remaining days in this little marathon of mine.

By the way, the first-stage contingency plan is “return from Worldcon with only 2 weeks in the buffer.” The SECOND stage plan is “return from Worldcon with only one week in the buffer.” The THIRD stage contingency plan is “Howard stays home from Worldcon.” 1st-stage buys me 36 rows of slack. 2nd stage buys me 72 rows of slack. In theory I could pencil, ink, and color today’s scripts, and then ONLY work on book stuff, and still be able to go to Worldcon. But that means frantic working after the convention is over, and I hate doing that.

The scorecard then… 13 days left, and 202 rows to go.