Writer Life & Lessons

April Update: Goals

penguin 003It’s May! Happy Beltain!

At the beginning of the year I set myself four goals: track my daily wordcount, write a minimum of once a week, “sort out” Resilience, and submit my manuscript to someone by July 1st.

April is over, and it’s time to see how the month went.

i. The Daily Word Count

I wrote EVERY DAY this month – Huzzah!

*awaits round of applause and whooping*

I’ve written 19,027 words, beating last month’s wordcount by around 9000 words!

Planes Shifter:      From 6,289   To  41,119

Short Story:            From 402              To  432  [of 500 words]

Note: Planes Shifter is a re-write ~ once I had it re-plotted, I pasted over the scenes which i’m keeping from the old version – and that is why the wordcount doesn’t exactly add up.

ii. Write Once a Week

I wrote over 429 words a day from the 2nd April to the 30th. Some days I wrote more, but once I had forged a chain, I didn’t let it drop. Thus, this month, I made a “chain” of 29 days.

iii. Work on Resilience

I got very close to trunking Planes Shifter and thus, Resilience would have taken its place. However, I managed to keep a handle on things, and so I didn’t look at Resilience during April. And that’s okay.

iv. Work Towards Submission in July

This is a shaky one, but I’m still aiming to submit some time in 2014. Once I’ve finished this re-draft, I should be able to work out a more accurate time-scale.

v. Read 24 Books

Not strictly a writing goal, but with my annual attempt to rekindle my label of “avid-reader” I’m trying to set an achievable goal of one book a fortnight.

I only read one book this month, but when I’m deep in edits, reading has to take a back-seat to writing.

This Month’s Score:    1/2 

This Year’s Score:       7/8

~

In Other News

* I saw one of my oldest friends for the first time in 4 years.

* Day-Job / Other Half changes are still afoot; with some scary decisions in progress.

* I made some active steps forward in a Sekrit project. It’s one of those things that has to happen, not just a “maybe this will work” but the how it works is proving difficult to pin down. I’ve tried three ways and as of this morning, i’ve started three new attempts. Unfortunately it’s involving a lot of writing; cutting into my novel time.

* I drove to see OH and barely said hello before furiously scribbling down ideas for a new novel. And then OH offered up an idea that would go well. He said “MEGA-RAVEN”. We’ll see how that goes.

* I went home to my parent’s house for the Easter weekend and still got left treats by the Easter Bunny…

* I made an origami penguin (see picture). He is currently unnamed.

* I lost all motivation for the Planes Shifter re-write, then found it again after talking through my outline with Sorcha.

 

How has your month been?

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