I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, each month it gets harder to meet my writing goals. May looked insane until June happened. And I thought June was cray cray until July snuck up and punched me in the face. Ouch. *rubs jaw* And as ruthless as July was, nothing can compare to August. August was just...mean.
I had travel for my day job, getting sick (which I hate), wedding related duties, a visit from my parents, an online writers conference, and my LITTLE SISTER’S WEDDING. *sigh* It’s tiring just to recount it all.
The highlight of August was obviously my sister's wedding. It was wonderful, and in true St. Louis fashion, incredibly hot. I have a little post about it here. Luckily, we wore short dresses.
My sister, the bride, she had it rough: 1 big dress with 3 petticoats underneath. I'm surprised she didn't melt.
WriteOnCon was pretty neat. I certainly recommend it to anyone seeking feedback. But it’s not the same as an in-person writer’s conference. It doesn’t compare to RWA ATL. Attending a writer’s conference IRL is so much better because there are people, people everywhere. Writing is such a solitary endeavor. We are alone in our heads. We are alone at our desks. WriteOnCon was nice but it certainly didn’t provide the connections that I experienced at RWA. If you are interested in attending a regional or national writers conference I say do it. In my experience, it was totally worth every cent and sacrifice.
So all of this should have stressed me out. All of this should have taken me away from my writing and prevented me from hitting my daily word count…right?
Wrong.
I was never worried about my daily word count. I never thought “How on Earth will I ever fit in 300 words a day with all this going on?” I didn’t think it because I know I can fit 300 little words a day into most days. It all comes down to priorities. I know this is true because I’ve done it for the last few months. I’m my own living proof.
August writing action shot
When I wasn’t freaking out about wedding stuff (is there such a thing a Maid-of-Honor-Zilla? No? Good!) I was writing which felt great. I was able to finish a major rewrite of one WIP and start revisions of another WIP. I got my work out to a handful of awesome writers to see what they think, which is always exciting. I can’t wait to read the feedback. As tough as it can be to let yourself be vulnerable it’s absolutely vital to growth. A story can’t grow without feedback just like skills won’t grow without feedback. I talk a little about this in a previous post. Check it out here.
So what did my new found confidence yield? The resulting productivity is as follows:
5 blog posts
0 novels read (more on this later)
2 days of WriteOnCon
3 amazing days of family fun at my sisters wedding
And a boatload of words *does happy dance *
For a grand total of 22,092 words. That’s just approximately 5k words below my best month ever and look how busy I was. It just reinforces what I know to be true – you can do absolutely anything you put your mind to.
This brings my total ‘tracked’ word count for the year to 81,282! *blinks* I can’t believe it. That’s a lotta words. Check out how I did in July, and June, and May.
The fact that I’m writing my August word count recap means it’s already SEPTEMBER, WTH? I can’t believe how fast this year is flying by. Approaching the final quarter of the year means I need to take a serious look at my goals.
Last month I mentioned trying to build my goals around an ‘end product’. Do I want to write one book a year? Is it two? And from there reverse engineer the necessary daily word count goals. I wasn’t able to fit that into my August so stay tuned.
How are your writing goals coming along? How do you determine you daily word goals?
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