I Can Haz Productivity: February 2014 Month In Review

This past month has been busy. I know you feel me here. It’s a short month which seems to amplify the madness. So much to do and so little time.

First, there was my birthday and the Olympics.

What else …? Oh yeah, the snowpocalypse hit ATL a SECOND TIME. This time around there was more snow and ice but less disaster. With the last snow storm so fresh in our minds I think the entire city of ATL decide to play it safe. No one in my family or circle of friends lost power, got hurt, or was stuck in their car for fifteen hours this time around.

And it was so pretty. Mostly because we didn’t have to go anywhere. But still.

And of course, Valentines day was nestled in there. We escaped up to the North GA Mountains for a neat nature retreat. Here is a pic. There was still snow on the ground. Pretty cool.

If you follow my blog or my Twitter feed you may have picked up on my powerful lust for Parks and Rec. It’s one of my favorite shows on TV. It certainly has its ups and downs but I almost always LOL while watching.



One of Leslie Knope’s favorite things is to celebrate Galentine’s day. One day before Valentines day she gets together with the lovely women in her life and together they celebrate being awesome women (regardless of their relationship status).

A brilliant idea, if you ask me. I think this should be a thing. So I’m going to try to take more time to celebrate and cheer for the amazing women in my life.



And on top of all the celebrating, lovey-dovey stuff, and snowpocolapse I had class. I started taking a class that meets 3 days a week for 4 hours. It’s tough to manage on top of my day job, writing, and general life activities. But I love the class (even though I’m not a big fan of the amount of homework). I’ve really enjoyed the class so far and I’ve got 4 more months of it so enjoyment is a good thing.



All of that to say, I was busy. My word count suffered but my novel did not. I’m deep in the maddening maze that is editing. I’ve been working on the list of changes I’ve compiled from my work in the contests last month. It’s tough but worthwhile.

I had set a personal goal to finish all the edits in February. I failed to meet that goal. But I came so close. In fact, by the time this very post goes live I should have finished the edits. So, not bad.

One theme that keeps repeating in my writer life is to be flexible. Flexibility is so important in writing – and other parts of life. So I won’t beat myself up for missing the deadline. Heck, I’m just proud to have accomplished so much. Editing is tough work. Trying to weave story elements in (or out of) an entire novel is no small task.

So what did my month yield? The productivity is as follows:

2 blog posts
0 novels read
16 edits tackled (only 1 remaining edit needed)
And words, lots of words *does happy dance *

For a grand total of 8,406 words. Tracking word count during a heavy edit month is always strange. I’m certainly cutting the crap out of words in my novel but I’m always rewriting/rephrasing and adding new passages. Last time I tracked word count during a heavy edit month I smashed the word count goal. This time, not so much. But that’s okay.

The edits are good and it’s a much stronger story because of it.

This brings my total ‘tracked’ word count to 23,265 for the year! My writing goals are off to a good start.


How are your writing goals coming along? How do you determine you daily word goals?