June Roundup

What did I say for a goal for June at the end of last month? Nothing. Nothing at all. My goal this whole year has been 1,000 words a day. That's pretty much it. I have also been able to increase my monthly total each month, but I was pretty sure that could only go so far. Sooner or later, I would get a total that I couldn't surpass.

Sooner or later has finally arrived, sadly. Last month in May, I wrote 37,710. I knew I'd probably reached my limit, and I didn't try to push myself to overcome it. There are only so many hours in the day. I slip my writing in wherever I can during my day, and this month didn't lend itself to outdoing last month. This is my chart that shows how this month went:

So, I only got 33,458 words this month. That doesn't suck. It's only four thousand words less than last month, and I've continued to progress toward my ultimate goal of 300,000. I did miss my 1,000 words a day goal once. I had been struggling all week long with my motivation. I would find something else to do all day long, and then when I got home at night, I would be up until 2:00 or 3:00 AM before I finally managed to write my 1,000 words. On June 23rd, I was doing the same thing during the day. When I got home that night, my daughter was on the computer, and I just didn't feel like fighting with it anymore, so I didn't kick her off so that I could write. Instead, I just went to bed. It wasn't the end of the world. I'd do better the next day.

And I did. It was almost as if I needed that day of letting it go to recharge my battery or something. The next day, I made sure to hit it hard early. I didn't wait until 2:00 in the morning to get started. I still struggle with motivation, but I manage to overcome for the most part.

Things are going well, though. A few days ago, I posted an update about how I'd reached 225,000 words, putting me 3/4 of the way to my goal. Ooh, I ought to do one of those word count meters. I forgot about those things. Give me a second to create it. Here we go, this is a visual representation of how my progress toward my main goal has gone:

236218 / 300000 (78.74%)

I'm 78% of the way there, but the good part, again, is that I am only 68% of the way through the year. Here's the charts for my writing so far:

Here and there I have bad days, but even on those days I still write, just a little less. I've written every single day now since January 19th. Let me ask Siri how many days that is. She says 163 days. I have written 163 days in a row...or maybe 162 days in a row...crap, I've got to check it now. Did Siri include January 19th in that count or not? Hold on...nope, she didn't count the 19th, so I am at 163 days in a row. That's pretty cool. I have to say.

I'm going to keep doing that. This month will be the same goal as every month. I want to get at least 1,000 words a day. On occasion I might miss it, but at the very least, I'm going to average 1,000 a day. I will likely be able to beat my June total, because July has 31 days where June only had 30.

I don't expect that I'll beat May, but you never know. It all depends on how the juices are flowing from day to day. I don't know if you noticed on my chart, but there were a couple of days in June where I barely made it past 1,000. On June 19th, I made it to 1,001 words. That was it. Just one word over my goal. On that day, I wasn't feeling it. When I saw that I'd eked over the line, I said, "I'll take it," and I quit for the day. Same thing happened a few days later on the 22nd. I got 1,006, and I said, "I'll take it."

So, there are good days and bad days. The most important thing is to keep plugging away.

I've spent a really long time on The Gauntlet now. It has reached 80,000 words, and is nearing completion (though, by nearing completion I mean it only has another 30,000 or so to go). I'm at a really heartbreaking part of the book right now, and I don't really want to write it. When you spend a lot of time with your characters, it can become difficult to make them go through the really hard times, but I have to do it. I may have low word counts for the next little while as I avoid writing the hard scenes. I guess we'll see.

Soon enough, I'll be done. Interested in reading it? I hope so. That's another hard part about writing. You spend so much time and effort on something, and when you're done there is most likely going to be nothing at the end. No reaction. No compliments. Bupkis.

If you want, let me know, and you can be one of my first readers. I think legit authors all have first readers to help them polish their work. I got a few people who volunteered to read my Christmas Collection for me, and hopefully in a few months, I'll be able to publish that.

Once I get to my birthday, and I've succeeded at my goal, it will be time to start working toward a new goal for next year. That one is going to be publishing. I am going to work as hard at publishing stuff as I did this year at writing stuff. That will include audiobooks, ebooks, physical books, and podcasts as well. I don't know if that excites you to hear, but I hope it does. It excites me. All that stuff I've put the effort into creating is going to be launched out into the world. What will happen with it? Who knows, probably bupkis, but at least I've shared it, and it's not hidden away anymore.

Thanks for reading this if you made it this far, and I'll see you back here next month with another update. Peace.