Q1 2023 Writing Update

Hey, you!

I don't know if anybody is interested in reading about my writing journey, but I'm putting it out there anyway. These posts are probably more for my benefit than anything, as I hope to look back on them someday and marvel at how far I’ve risen.

As you’ll know if you read my post about 2023 writing goals, I was aiming to write at least one novella (20-25 thousand words a piece) for each month of the year. When (not if, because I’m trying to trick my brain into success) I reach that goal, it will be the most writing I’ve ever done in one year!

At least, I think it will, but it will also be the first year when I’ll be tracking my word counts. Because of that, I’m doing a little bit of guesswork on that. In any case, how have I been doing so far on reaching my yearly goals?

Let’s find out!

If you’re the type of person who likes to see the dates and numbers, then I’ve got you! I’ll be including my daily word counts for the months of January through March at the end of this post. But first, let’s take a look at how I planned out my writing schedule (and how well I followed that plan).

January:

In the beginning, I planned to use the first of each month to plan out the month’s weekly and daily goals. The thought was that if I scheduled myself enough days off, then I would avoid burnout, and I would also be more likely to get the work done with a solid plan in place.

I did write a daily goal for most days in my January spreadsheet… but three of those days said, “Whatever,” and a couple of them were left blank. Real helpful, past me!

Instead of simply planning out the month, I started strong on January first by diving head first into plotting a brand-spanking-new story idea that I had only just thought of the day before. Guess what my new passion project has been ever since then.

For the next few days, the “whatever” days for those keeping track, I pounded out several episodes in the new story idea, without giving a second thought to the novella I had planned to rewrite that month (the one I mentioned in this post that I randomly drafted just before landing my first ghostwriting contract).

For the following work week, I had planned to write a chapter per day and get through the first half of the novella! Well, I did get through the first three chapters without a hitch, but I stalled hard on chapter four.

I have three days on the spreadsheet that say I wrote a little of chapter four, two days where I wrote nothing because my brain just couldn’t, and several days in between of random side projects. Finally, a full eight days after the chapter was scheduled to be written, I finished chapter four!

The following week, I did not plan which chapters or how many words to get through, but I instead decided to try a different tactic. Rather than achievement-based goals, I instead planned to follow along with live writing sprints for each day of the week and see how productive I happened to be.

Spoiler alert, I only joined a live sprint one of those days and did not accomplish much. Still, it was the sprint that got me through chapter four of the novella!

I did not accomplish much else for that entire week, though, with several zero-word days filling my spreadsheet. My note in the, “What I did,” column on one of those days just says, “Apparently I only make plans to break them.” How true that is….

After that very brutal-for-my-brain week was over, I started getting back up to more satisfactory word counts. Jumping back into the novella, I was writing over a chapter a day, apart from days that I did other things or took a purposeful break.

I even wrote two whole chapters one day, thanks to giving live sprints another go!

The end of the month was approaching, and after that major success of a day, I managed to finish drafting that novella on the thirtieth. That’s a whole day earlier than my personal deadline, which to me was cause for celebration!

The last day of January was spent not following the plan, which I had updated only the day before but still ignored. Oh well, at least I got three hundred or so words of planning for February!

February:

Yet again, I spent the first of the month coming up with brand new ideas and plotting like crazy for stories I won’t have the time to write for a while (at least they're connected to my other new idea, right?). Five thousand words later, I have the plots for several novelette prequels to the new idea I had started in January. Sigh.

I mean, I’m super excited about it, but also… really, Brain?

Now, I did not plan before which story idea precisely I would be using for my monthly novella draft, which turned out to be for the better. Instead, I started planning to write two of the prequel novelettes per month, since those were plotted to be about 10k words a piece.

So I spent the first half of a week in February plotting and working on piddly stuff, and on the first Monday, I got to work!

I was writing two short chapters a day of my new novelette, and then, halfway through that week… I heard back from the ghostwriting client about a new contract.

Granted, I had been eagerly awaiting this message because it meant I would be given the outlines for all the novellas I would need to meet my monthly goals. It also meant that I would be getting paid some money that I would use for cover art and editing funds for my own projects down the line!

At the same time, I was a little bummed that I would have to sideline my own projects for the time being.

So, instead of being a reasonable adult who knows my own limits, I decided to work on both at the same time!

I spent the rest of that week cramming in my personal novelette chapters and the beginning of the ghostwriting book series into the same days. That meant very long days and very high word counts, as well as trying to divide my attention between two very different stories in two very different genres.

I ended up finishing my novelette by the planned date, but I was behind on where I wanted to be for the ghostwriting book. I was still on track to be able to finish it on time, but I was behind where I wanted to be for my own comfort!

I had also decided to experiment with dictation for the ghostwriting project and let me tell you now, it did not work for me!

The first couple of chapters did not get done any faster than when I type them because my brain just doesn’t work as well through spoken word. On top of that, when it came time to edit, it was a legitimate nightmare to get through!

Lesson learned.

Even though I was behind, I had burned myself out on the ghostwriting project, so I could not get back into it for a few days. Instead, I worked on my website, as you may have seen some updates during the middle of February.

I met the book’s deadline in the end, having it drafted a few days early. The editing was rough, but I got through it and turned in the finished product with time to spare (by some miracle!).

Once that was over, I did a few days of working on my other story, but for the final week, I did very little. There was some writing I did not count for a critique group I joined that month, and some loafing around, but mostly I ended the month with zero-word days.

Goals were met well enough, but the individual days’ plans were fairly well ignored completely. At least I met my goal from the beginning of the year and completed a novella for the month (and a bonus novelette)!

March:

I knew that I needed to get to work on ghostwriting book two. Even though the client had not started the milestone for it, so I didn’t have a set deadline yet, I knew that I would feel better if I gave myself a bit of a buffer and had it drafted well ahead of time.

Did I actually do that?

No, I did not.

Instead, I spent the first two stinking weeks of the month doing almost no writing! I managed to get a thousand words into book two, but mercifully the client didn’t get that deadline started while I was going through the worst of my brain stubbornness.

I did get a lot of crocheting and knitting done during that time though (finally finished making the presents I meant to send out for Christmas 2022, eh heh…).

Anyway, that’s why you don’t overdo it, cause burnout is so very real….

Once the client got back to me, I started joining live sprints regularly and was able to finish chapter one at last. I started setting reasonable goals for myself every day and reached them most of the time.

When I felt like I needed a break, I gave myself grace, and I planned enough flexibility in my schedule to be comfortable doing that.

With two weeks in which to draft a 25-thousand-word novella, I got through the first half with almost no problem! That is, until the end of the first week, when I had to play a little catch-up for missing a day, and instead decided to work on my blog again (Note, I’m literally doing that to write this right now).

Nearly two weeks later, I return to report that I finished that book with time to spare! I drafted and edited it, then turned it in a day early. At the end of that, I realized that five days left at the end of the month, Monday through Friday, was the perfect opportunity to write another 10k novelette prequel!

The chance was too good to pass up, so I didn’t wait before jumping right into that. That may have been a mistake, though, because here I am, on the last day of the work week and of the month, and I have fallen behind on that goal.

I still finished the novella for the month and therefore achieved my main goal, but my stretch goal appears to be a lofty dream at the moment. At least I made it over halfway through that story, so there’s a good chance I’ll finish it soon enough.

After a solid weekend of crocheting adorable egg-shaped bunnies, celebrating my baby girl’s birthday, and an early Easter, I may get back into the swing of things a little bit refreshed.

Either that, or I’ll be fully exhausted and will have to power through even harder just to get book 3 of the ghostwriting contract done in time. We shall see, and I shall report it all in the second quarter’s update!

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and everything else that occupies your time!

January Word Counts

Date Daily Total

January 1 Sunday 3348 3348

January 2 Monday 1158 4506

January 3 Tuesday 1198 5704

January 4 Wednesday 1367 7071

January 5 Thursday 1613 8684

January 6 Friday 2535 11219

January 7 Saturday 2198 13417

January 8 Sunday 0 13417

January 9 Monday 2088 15505

January 10 Tuesday 447 15952

January 11 Wednesday 0 15952

January 12 Thursday 140 16092

January 13 Friday 321 16413

January 14 Saturday 149 16562

January 15 Sunday 1925 18487

January 16 Monday 288 18775

January 17 Tuesday 1759 20534

January 18 Wednesday 0 20534

January 19 Thursday 33 20567

January 20 Friday 303 20870

January 21 Saturday 0 20870

January 22 Sunday 606 21476

January 23 Monday 0 21476

January 24 Tuesday 530 22006

January 25 Wednesday 3072 25078

January 26 Thursday 33 25111

January 27 Friday 2265 27376

January 28 Saturday 2764 30140

January 29 Sunday 4596 34736

January 30 Monday 3124 37860

January 31 Tuesday 122 37982

February Word Counts

Date Daily Total

February 1 Wednesday 5272 5272

February 2 Thursday 2646 7918

February 3 Friday 2080 9998

February 4 Saturday 2043 12041

February 5 Sunday 1412 13453

February 6 Monday 2755 16208

February 7 Tuesday 3205 19413

February 8 Wednesday 4483 23896

February 9 Thursday 4811 28707

February 10 Friday 2089 30796

February 11 Saturday 669 31465

February 12 Sunday 2085 33550

February 13 Monday 5023 38573

February 14 Tuesday 870 39443

February 15 Wednesday 3140 42583

February 16 Thursday 4396 46979

February 17 Friday 2560 49539

February 18 Saturday 2540 52079

February 19 Sunday 2343 54422

February 20 Monday 1200 55622

February 21 Tuesday 100 55722

February 22 Wednesday 73 55795

February 23 Thursday 1003 56798

February 24 Friday 0 56798

February 25 Saturday 0 56798

February 26 Sunday 208 57006

February 27 Monday 0 57006

February 28 Tuesday 0 57006

March Word Counts

Date Daily Total

March 1 Wednesday 0 0

March 2 Thursday 1244 1244

March 3 Friday 0 1244

March 4 Saturday 0 1244

March 5 Sunday 0 1244

March 6 Monday 0 1244

March 7Tuesday 0 1244

March 8 Wednesday 0 1244

March 9 Thursday 332 1576

March 10 Friday 0 1576

March 11 Saturday 0 1576

March 12 Sunday 0 1576

March 13 Monday 1523 3099

March 14 Tuesday 2513 5612

March 15 Wednesday 0 5612

March 16 Thursday 2280 7892

March 17 Friday 2954 10846

March 18 Saturday 3064 13910

March 19 Sunday 0 13910

March 20 Monday 1524 15434

March 21 Tuesday 2010 17444

March 22 Wednesday 2470 19914

March 23 Thursday 2476 22390

March 24 Friday 3731 26121

March 25 Saturday 1257 27378

March 26 Sunday 600 27978

March 27 Monday 1469 29447

March 28 Tuesday 2542 31989

March 29 Wednesday 1542 33531

March 30 Thursday 0 33531

March 31 Friday 737 34268

My total word count for the year so far is 129,054! That's more than I estimate that I wrote altogether last year, so I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes! Thank you for reading, and I hope this has inspired you to keep going even through the rough days!