May In The Books

May is over. We have reached the end. It's in the books. How did my quest for achieving writing and publishing goals gone in that time? Well, let's start by reviewing the goals. I set them up in this post at the start of the month. What were they?

1. 1,333 words per day, 41,323 in total for the month
2. Finish 64% of Battalion of Ideas audiobook
3. Publish eBook, paperback, and hardcover of "Two Vampire Weekend"

So, we'll start with the words per day. My goal was just 1,333 words a day. I considered upping that goal, but I didn't feel like I was ready for that, so I stayed put. 41,323 for the month was the bare minimum.

It was a hard month for me when it comes to writing. I wasn't feeling it this month. I've been writing on "Still They Ride" a space cowboy story with a main character who is based on the Lone Ranger. I've been working on it for more than a month, and I don't think it's very good. 

In the old days, I probably would have quit on it, and looked for something else to write. Or more likely I'd have stopped and then spent six months writing nothing. I'm not letting myself do that this time, however. I made an outline, and I'm forging ahead all the same. It's been tough, because I haven't really wanted to write any day this month, but I've done it all the same. 

Heinlein's Rule #2 was that you must finish what you start. So I forced myself to keep going. I'm 54,262 words in, and I'll probably get at least another 10,000 before the book is done. Then I'll have to put in a second draft on this thing which will probably make it another 10,000 longer before it ever gets anywhere...that's if I ever care enough to do a second draft on that story.

I did better than last month. I didn't have any slip ups. I hit the goal every day.

Look at that total. 43,980. I wasn't feeling it for the entire month, but with a goal like 1,333 words a day, I was still able to hit my all-time best word total. Back in March, I made it to 43,745. That was the best I'd ever done in a month's time. In May, however, I eclipsed that. That's 235 more words than my previous record!

I don't know why, but it kind of makes me feel bad that I managed that. It seems like my record best month should be a month where I was loving what I was doing every day, and what I produced was my best work. I don't think that I've done anything of the sort this month. Instead, I just pushed through despite my lack.

Then again, maybe that's a good thing. It shows...determination, right? It shows a good work ethic. I may have actually developed a good work ethic. Even though I don't think I'm writing my best work, I pushed through and even hit a record total. If I want to become a professional writer, then I'm going to have to be able to do that kind of stuff, right?

Anyway, that's how the month went...bad, but also good. Here's where we at on the year so far:

It's hard to read, but it doesn't matter. There's numbers in all of those boxes. Which mean's I've written very faithfully. Here's a closer shot of the totals.

My total is really getting up there.  With this month's word count, I'm not at 273,868 words on the year which is really close to 304,475 my eventual goal. I'm 89,95% of the way there (basically 90%) I only need to get 30,607 to make it there. Considering that I've gotten at least that much every month since December, I think I can safely predict that I will hit my year's goal before the end of this coming month. That's pretty exciting. I just gotta keep plodding away, writing every day whether I want to or not. The goal is in my grasp.

So, what about the other goals? What were they again?

1. 1,333 words per day, 41,323 in total for the month
2. Finish 64% of Battalion of Ideas audiobook
3. Publish eBook, paperback, and hardcover of "Two Vampire Weekend"

Okay, what about the audiobook? I was trying to get half of what I had left to produce done this past month. That meant that I needed to record and edit the following stories:

1. True Colors
2. The Tomorrow Bowl
3. My Daughter's Balloon
4. The Wrong Ingredients
5. Through the Din of Silence
6. Stalled 
7. Something Out There
8. Queen Bea
9. Chloey, Joey, Zoey, and David Bowie

That seems like a lot, but they were all pretty short stories.  In fact, I chose all of the shortest stories first, and left the longest for next month. I jumped on it, and worked pretty hard, but I fell one story short. I never quite made it to "Chloey, Joey, Zoey, and David Bowie." I made it to eight out of nine stories, so even though I didn't meet the goal, it wasn't a complete failure, but it sure galls me to get that close and not make it to the end.

So, goal one was a success. Goal two was an almost success, but technically a failure. Goal three? Well, I talked about that in yesterday's post, where I announced the availability of the various formats of the book. Yup, I made it. I managed to get the eBook, paperback, and hardcover of Three Vampire Weekend published. Available now at Amazon.com!

So, I nailed goals one and three and came one story short for goal two. That's a pretty good month, I'd say. Weird, because if you'd asked me how my month had been, I'd have said that it was pretty bad. Yet I still managed to achieve everything that I was after, basically.

What about June? What's my goals this time around. Well, as usual, I'm going to have to write 1,333 words a day. I'm going to go ahead and make the goal of hitting my full year goal this month. That's pretty much a given if I keep goal one. 

What else? Well, I've got to make up for my lack in the audiobook publishing area from this month. I didn't get all the stories done for A Battalion of Ideas. So, I'm going to make that my big goal for the month of June. There are four stories left to record and edit in the book. They are:

1. Chloey, Joey, Zoey, and David Bowie
2. The Tenth Album
3. The Battle of the Ideas
4. Last Contact

That's a lot less stories in number, but it's way more in word count. Those four stories make up the bulk of the book. I am going to record and edit those four, and get the audiobook of A Battalion of Ideas published by the end of this month.

So, let's throw in another numbered list, and put my goals for June:

1. 1,333 words per day, 41,323 in total for the month
2. Complete my year long goal of 304,475 words
   
3. Finish the Battalion of Ideas audiobook 100%
   

Last month, I was a little depressed, and I think a lot of it came from the fact that my goals felt like they were beyond my reach, like there was no way I could achieve them. This month, I feel is a little more achievable. Let's see how it goes...