Mayday

The post title for this one is misleading. It's just a dumb pun that really has little to do with what's going on. It has May in there, and that is all I was after. I just didn't want to use May flowers...or May powers (which is even worse) like I did last year. So I'm just going to stick with it.

Last month, I didn't make any bold or crazy goals. I just said I would try to continue to beat my monthly total from the month before. I've managed to do that every month so far. It started out pretty easy, because my first two monthly totals were very low. Now it's getting pretty tough.

Last month, I wrote 37,668 words. I was well aware that I needed to write like the wind this month to beat it. I even got an extra day this month, but I still had to go hard. My original goal of 1,000 words a day would leave me 6,668 words shy. I had to write an average of 1,216 words to beat last month. Could I do it?

I did my best. Any chance that I had to write extra words, I took it. Many days I fell below that 1,216 level, but there were other days that made up for it. I got more than 1,500 several times, and my highest of the month was 1,634. I paid close attention to my total, and how many words a day I had to write to reach my goal. I did the math to average it out several times. When the final days arrived, I needed at least 1,300 to get there, and I just sat in my seat and kept typing until I got there. Here's my chart for the month:

  So, I beat April's total of 37,668 by 42 words. That's about as razor thin a margin as you can get, but I did it.

I posted a couple of days ago about how I passed over the 200,000 words mark. So, I am two thirds of the way there. That's really exciting. Here's my year so far:

So, I am now at 202,760, and I've got about five months left to get that last 100,000. I'm feeling really confident, I'll have to admit. Things are looking bright.

In May, I even managed to put out some of the dumpster fires that constituted my life, and I'm working to return those back to where they should be.