Normally I set aside Sundays for releases of Thar adventures. As anticipated, however, I haven’t been able to get one ready the week before Christmas but I’m still committed to my “post a day for a year” thing, so instead we’re going to talk about my word count in December.
To catch up anyone who isn’t a regular reader of the blog (this category includes all people), my current goal in writing is to reach one million words, and to that end I’m trying to write at least 25,000 words a month every month. As of my successful NaNoWriMo this year I had 825,000 lifetime words, so at that rate I’ll hit one million on June 30th of next year.
I’m currently at 14,270 out of 16,935, though in my defense I’m also writing this early in the morning, so the real number to compare to is December 20th’s goal of 16,129. Those of you who are good at math will have noticed that this number is still bigger than 14,270, though, which means I still have a problem. I had this kind of problem multiple times in NaNoWriMo, though, and I was consistently able to overcome it just as soon as I had an outline sorted. Most of December’s writing has been discovery writing random plot bunnies as they occur to me, usually for 2k-5k at a stretch before tying up the story (often only one or two scenes long) and moving on to something else. I’ve also been building an outline in the back of my head, but I’ve been consistently dissatisfied with that outline, which is why it took me three weeks to settle on one that I liked. I’m now about 70% confident that I’ll follow my current outline through to the end of December and be able to finish on time using it, and hopefully continue relying on it into January.
Either way, my immediate plan is for sure to follow that outline to the tune of 2k words per day until I catch up, and maybe even build a bit of a buffer. That approach worked out for me pretty well in November, and that’s when my word quota per day was 1,667 rather than 806.
I’m beginning to fear I may have bitten off more than I can chew for my Imbolc goals (like I do), but I’m nothing if not stubborn. You’ll read this a few days from now, but for me, it’s Yule. The deepest night of the year. As per tradition, it is here, in the iciest grip of winter, that I defy the darkness.
Chamomile Has A Blog 