Wednesday, January 30, 2013

More Good News Than Bad

The good news:

I've been writing more than my recent blog silence would suggest. I've worked on TOB almost every day in January, and I'm still happy with how it's all coming together. It's been a pretty kick-ass month in all areas, actually, and I'm feeling positive about what 2013 holds for me.

The bad news:

I haven't been making my word count. Like, at all. I'm working every day, but some days I'm only making 100 words of progress. Why I am so freaking slow right now? Rigorous analysis has revealed several causes.

Exhibit A: I inadvertently screwed myself on a whole chapter's worth of word count. I knew 500 a day would be pushing it for me, so I decided to give myself word count credit for my scene outlines. The problem with this brilliant idea is that as I wrote the scene, I had to erase words from the outline. Some super-productive days, I wrote 800 words but didn't make my 500 words of progress. Super demotivating. Lesson learned: the outline will no longer count toward the word count goal. It means I'll lose a day of word count progress every time I need to make an outline, but at least all the scene words I write will be actual progress.

Exhibit B: 500 words may be more than I can do every day right now. I hate to say that, since it makes meeting my June 26 deadline basically impossible-- but on the other hand, if I push myself too hard, I'll get book fatigue and start avoiding the work. I think my plan for Feb. is going to be 500 words on my light days, and 250 on my heavy days. That sounds like I'm discussing my menstrual cycle, but you know what I mean.

That's the update folks. Onward!

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