Sunday, January 14, 2024

Two Weeks Into The New Year

Today was a bit of a red letter day, so it's a good time to be writing my weekly report. First, I'll start with my chart for the month so far.

I made my goal of 1,000 words every day, and that's good, but my goal this month is actually 1,250 words a day. Did I make that? Oops, not today. How could I say that it was a red letter day if I fell 238 words short of my extended goal?

Well, the reason I stopped writing at 1,022 words today was because I was at the end of my book. That's right, I just typed the end on my most recent novel, "Caught Up in Christmas." The book finished off at 76,181 words, and I think it's pretty good. I'll have to see what I can do to have it ready for people's eyes come next holiday season. I'd like to see if I can't get some other books out before that as well. This one is now my fifth finished novel. I wrote Sunny & Gray, Part One: Sunny, Sunny & Gray, Part Two: Gray, The Gauntlet, The Fire at the Center of a Million Universes, and now Caught Up in Christmas.

It's pretty exciting. I'm proud of myself for reaching this level. It's always a feeling of achievement. I'm also scared to death. I have to write 1,000 words tomorrow, and I have no idea what I want to write them in. I was thinking of trying to write my book that I have titled "The Skeleton Crew," but I don't feel like I am at all ready to start on it. I have a few other ideas that I could try, but I'm afraid I may flail around and be lucky to get five hundred words that I'll never use for anything tomorrow. I don't know, we'll see.

So, anyway, back to my goals for the month. I didn't make 1,250 every day, but I am still doing pretty well toward my goal. I was hoping to get a record word count for a month this time, which means I have to get to at least 38,047 words. Here's where I'm at after fourteen days.

18278 / 38047 (48.04%)

I'm fourteen days in, which is 45% of the way through January, and I'm 48% done. So, I'm on pace to beat that record. That's pretty good. Of course, that only matters if I can come up with something to write tomorrow. If I can't get those 1,250 words, then I'll fall behind. I worry.

How's the progress on the year long goal? Add the above chart from January to the below chart for the rest of the year so far, and we get...

83,237 words so far in 2023-2024. That's pretty awesome. I'm really coming along. We're only 21.58% of the way through the year. What percent of the way have I traveled to my goal?

83237 / 304475 (27.34%)

27.24%. That's way above the 21.58% of the year that has passed so far. So, I'm cruising here. I should make it to my goal and then some as long as I keep at it. As long as I can figure out something to write tomorrow. Maybe I should just search for some kind of story prompt and write to that or maybe I should dig out one of those many ideas that I've had over the years but never written because I barely ever wrote.

There's a story that I usually call "Alien Love Story," although years ago I wrote a step outline for the story and decided that the name of the tale would be "Love Walks In." Sadly, I can't find that step outline anymore. I don't seem to have saved it anywhere. I wonder if it might be on my old computer if I fired it up...although I think the last time I tried to fire it up, it didn't want to fire. Maybe I'll try it again tomorrow. 

I once wrote a list of story ideas, putting as many as I could come up with off the top of my head in an attempt to bring them to mind easier. I could look at that...Ooh, maybe I could write the story idea on the list that I had a while back that I called "The Elephant in the Room." That one might be something I could jump on. It should be relatively short, and something I could do starting tomorrow. Maybe that's the way to go, and then I spend time getting my next book ready as well so I can jump on it when "The Elephant in the Room" is done.

Sounds like a plan. Off we go.

No comments: