Happy Monday to you.
It’s me, and I’m emerging from the writing cave for a blog post.
Or perhaps, I should say, Live from the Writing Cave, it’s RJ Crayton’s blog post! (a la Saturday Night Live.)
Regardless, I realized it’s been a while (May 31, yikes) since I’ve written a blog post, so I wanted to pop in and tell you what I’ve been up to.
Let’s start with the bad news, as I hate to end things on a down note. We might as well get that stuff out of the way first. I’m behind in my daily word count. I’d started off the year with the hopes of knocking out 1,500 words per day to ensure I was getting decent output in terms of writing. Well, I’m way behind on that. I had several days where I wrote nothing, or miniscule amounts of words (200-300). For some reason, other parts of my life have been very busy and the writing has fallen to the wayside on too many occasions.
The good news is, even though I’m not completely on target, I’m not too far off, either. The last couple of days have been pretty good, with me exceeding my daily word count goal by a thousand words each day. As of Sunday night (June 14), I should have written 247,500 words for the year. I had actually written 229,233. That’s an average of 1,389 words per day. So, not too shabby. I think I may actually be able to close the gap if I really focus over the next two weeks. However, I do have some doctors appointments and things of that nature scheduled that disrupt my daily routine (which is how I end up not writing).
So, what are these 229,233 words I’ve written? Some of them are blog posts, either here or for Indies Unlimited. However, that’s a small percentage. The Self-Publishing Road Map, which I published earlier this year, was around 63,000 words. I have another 60,000 word manuscript I have not published yet. Unfortunately, you won’t be seeing it here. I’ve started writing in a different genre under a pseudonym. However, I won’t be discussing that work here, as I’m just testing the waters with it. Still, that pseudonym has eaten up another 30,000 words of what I’ve written.
Of the stuff you’ll see is my still untitled virus story. That’s planned as a three-book series that will need to be read together. I’ve written (and rewritten) the first book in the series, which comes in around 42,000 words, and I am about 20,000 words into book two of the series. I need to actually finish book two before I release book one. It’s more serial in nature, so when you finish book one, you’re really going to need to have book two available. My goal is to release those books in September, just a couple of weeks apart. But, we have to see how the writing goes. Given how little I’ve published this year, I’m working hard to make that happen.
Since I’ve mentioned the virus story, I thought I’d post chapter one for blog readers to see. I actually sent it out to people subscribed to the mailing list already. I don’t know that I’ll be posting chapter two anytime soon, as I’m trying to focus on getting this piece finished. You can read the story either in PDF format or HTML (like a regular webpage).
Last up, I’m getting new covers for the Life First series. “Again?” you say. Yep. Again. I’m trying not to be fickle, but I think the covers are just not as genre clear as they need to be. I think the new covers will be more indicative of that. Hopefully, I’ll have more info on the cover front next week.
That’s all for now.
Hope you have an awesome week ahead of you.
-RJ
As soon as I say or even think about setting daily word counts, I stumble. I think it’s a subconscious thing, lol. Not pressuring myself seems to work though. 🙂
Even those days where you put 200 – 300 words into a project should be celebrated. Your project is longer and you are closer to the finish. 🙂
Very true, Dale. Every bit counts over time. It’s helped a lot this year to track my writing. I can see when there are lulls, but it’s also awesome to see how many words have been written. Even if not all of them contribute to a novel, if feels good to see the cumulative effect. Even though I’m behind, if I maintain this pace, I’ll have half a million words by year’s end.
I had a slump for a bit but seem to be getting back on track, too.
Yvonne, I’m glad you were able to get back on track, too. Sometimes I think a break helps. Part of me wonders if I should adjust my word count downward to accommodate more breaks, or factor in a six day work week. At the moment, I want to see how this works for a year, and make adjustments for the new year in December.