Sweeping March Clean

It's been a pretty depressing month. It started out normal, and took a deep dive into the abnormal. I have no idea how things are going to play out, as no one really does, and it's been hard at times to feel like this crap matters anymore.

I feel a little like my writing goals are as important as the scare record was in Monsters Inc. At first, it was the be all end all of everything, but then we learned that there was something much bigger, Mike and Sulley get banished to the Himalayas, and then Mike complains at Sulley that he's ruined their lives with this escapade. "Oh, we were about to break the record, Sulley. We would've had it made!" he says.

Sulley replies, "None of that matters now."

Mike is incensed. "None of that matters? Wa-wait a second. None of it matters? Oh, okay, that's - no. Good. Great. So now the truth comes out, doesn't it?"

But who's right? In Monsters, Inc. Sulley was right in the end, of course, and made everything okay. I may be big, fat, and hairy, but I'm not Sulley. I'm not going to be fixing anything. The world has moved on. Oh, wait, now I'm mixing in a second property to confuse everything, but it's true. Roland of Gilead would attest to it. Things are different this week than they were on week one.

I've pretty much given up worrying about it, and plunged ahead working on writing every day like I was in February and January. March is a different world, a brand new existence, but until such time as the world ends, I will act as though it intends to spin on. Whoops, another quote from another different property. Does this guy even have real thoughts in his head or does he just quote lines from other people?

Anyway, I wrote on this month. It's become a habit, I guess, even on weekends, and I managed to get my 1,000 words every single day again. I surpassed my all-time record longest streak of days in a row. So, if the world doesn't end, then I'll have some feathers for my cap.

I had one total goal for the month, and that was to beat last month's total. Last month, an abbreviated month to be sure, I got 33,603 words, so 33,604 was my goal. Truthfully, I didn't think it would be that hard, because March is two days longer, this year, than February was. Here's my full month chart:

So, I finished out the month with 34,702 words. That's 1,099 words more than last month. Here's my progress meter to make it official:

34702 / 33604 (103.27%)

It's cool that I beat last month, but considering that there were two more days in the month, it was no great feat. Hell, I didn't even beat last month by two days worth of word count. I may have completed a marathon, but I walked the whole way. That's right, I'm using a marathon as a metaphor. Come at me.

Anyway, the real idea behind it was that it will make April a little easier. I already had it in mind to make beating my March total my goal for April. April only has thirty days, so it'll take more effort to beat March than March took to beat February. So, we'll see how I do. I will continue with my yearly goal of 1,000 words a day, and add to it that I must beat March. Gonna take a few extra good days.

Let me see...calculator says that I need approximately 1,157 words every day to beat March. That's gonna be a stretch. Some days I get more than that without even trying, but other days it's a struggle, and I just want to be done. Gonna have to put those kinds of days behind me.

How about the rest of the goals? The annual goals, how are they coming? Well, here's my year-to-date charts, split into two pieces so you can see them better:

The last three months have been pretty dang good. 30,000 words three months in a row. 90,000 in three months. If I did that for a full year, I would have 360,000 words for the year. Maybe that'll be my goal for next year. We'll see. I can't go back and change November and December, but that's fine. I wasn't going to be able to start out sprinting. I had to work up to that.

So, I'm at 127,382 words for the year so far. I'm not mathalete, but I think that I am well ahead of schedule. There's seven months left, and at 30,000 words a month I should get 210,000 words from those remaining months. Which would finish the year out at almost 340,000. So, as long as I don't wind up in the ICU with coronavirus I should make it. Let's hope that I can avoid that very real possibility. I'm eating right, keeping healthy, and probably able to withstand the virus if it tries to come at me. I like to say that my immune system is like Dikembe Mutombo at the rim.

I guess a bigger worry is how the rest of my family might respond if they come down with it. My wife and kids are completely averse to my healthy way of life. Several of my brothers and sisters are also pretty unhealthy and nearing that older demographic that is more vulnerable. How much might this world turn on its head before this is over. I heard one person say that he thought that before this is over, everyone will personally know someone who died, not six degrees of Kevin Bacon separation, but personally know them. I sure hope that's not true.