Writing Update For the Month of December

Should have got this out a while ago, but I've been behind on literally everything that I'm doing in my life.

So, you may remember that last October, I decided it was time to make a really big goal for writing. I started on October 28th, and will be working on it through the next October 27th. I did an update for November, the first full month of writing, and now it's time (well, past time) for the update for December.

In December, my goal was to increase my writing from whatever I could manage to at least 500 words a day. It went really well to begin with, but then my dad passed aaway, and everything in my life went out the window for a while.

When I cam back to it after a trip out to my dad's house for the funeral, I was much more spotty with my success. When I did write, I got at least 500 words, but I forgot to write relatively often.

Here is my final tally chart for the month of December:

So, there was a big hole there from the 10th to the 18th where I wrote nothing at all. Then on the weekends or if I had days off from work, I would forget to write. I usually write on my lunch break at work, so when I'm not at work, sometimes I forget.

I actually wrote on Christmas day, but not the weekend afterward. Why? Well, I didn't get Christmas day off. I was in there making the news happen, so I had a lunch break. I'm an intermittent faster, however, so I don't have to sit there and stuff my face with Doritos and Mountain Dew anymore. It gives me plenty of time to write instead...but I only seem to remember when I do things the usual habitual way.

Rish does try to call me to remind me to write, which helps, but it's definitely something I've got to get better with, because I didn't write on fourteen of the thirty-one days in December. It's all well and good to up my output to five hundred words a day, but that doesn't help a lot in getting to my goal if almost half of the days are zeroes.

So, I finished out the month with 12,574 words. Should have been closer to at least 15,500 but considering that nobody ever stops at exactly 500, it probably would have been several thousand above that. In 2017, when I did the 500 words a day thing, my total word count was more than 20,000 for the month.

So, here's my chart for the year-to-date total:

Missing so many days meant that I barely beat out November's total, and my total for the year so far is only 26,883. That's a lot, and more than I was doing back in September, for example. But, considering my goal is 300,000 for the year, it doesn't make me feel to excited. I still feel like I'm way at the bottom of Mt. Everest. Still miles to go before I even make it to the base camp.

Here's my picometer with my percentage

EDIT:
New progress meter.

26883 / 300000 (8.96%)

Eight percent is kind of small for two months worth. Two months is sixteen percent of twelve. So, I'm a little behind. However, I'm not upset or worried just yet. These first two months were supposed to get me in gear so that I could put the pedal to the metal for the last ten months. I plan to write at least one thousand words per day for the next ten months of the year. If I manage that, then I will definitely make 300,000. I even have 26 days of breathing room because of the 26,883 words I've written already.

So, for January, I'm taking it to the next level. The level that I'm supposed to be at. I am going to write one thousand words per day. If I manage that, then I'll get 30,000 words for the month, and ten percent of the total needed for the year. Should work out great...he said knowing just how poorly things can go because that's what happened last month.

I guess I'll let you know how it turns out.