Well the new year as come and gone, December is behind me, and January stretches out before me like a long cold road to purgatory.
First question is did I reach my 50,000 word goal for the month of December? The answer is yes and no. Looking just at the number of words I wrote tor my novels I did not achieve the 50,000 word mark. I only wrote 38,606 words. However, if I add in: the 9943 words for my blog posts, the 2562 words for critiques I wrote for Inked Voice, and the 1500 words I wrote for a restaurant review; my grand total is 52,611.
December, did teach me a lot. I learned that critique groups are interesting and can be helpful, but not to expect every one to put in the same amount of effort. I also learned that editing, can eat up time faster then writing, and that you can learn just as much from give, critiques as from receiving them. All in all, I will say December was a successful month toward my years goal.
Second question is can I maintain this pace, while shifting focus to the Bar exam? I am going to have to say, probably not. So, I have decided that January's word goal is only going to be 25,000. I know that this means I will have to add words in another month to reach you year end goal of 600,000 words. But I truly feel that it is the only option for January.
Third question is what am I going to focus on this month as my writing goal. My goal for this month is to get both the Veil and Red Books rough drafts done. I think this is a reasonable goal as both are very close to complete.
January is going to be a crazy and hectic month, mixing work, writing and studying into a heady mix which I hope will not leave me broken in the end. To keep my self on the writing track, I think I will continue to use Inked Voice, but I am also going to join 4thewords, to see if this is a fun way to add to my word count. Additionally, I am going to try and write at least and hopefully 2 blog post every week.
So there are my goals, for the next month. Seeing them all laid out, makes me sweat but hey, if I don't try how will I ever fail.
Ms. Fix,
ReplyDeleteYour focus is all wrong. You are focusing on quantity, not quality. Writing 250 good words in one day trumps writing 1,500 words of tripe any day. How about making you goal: write well, become a better writer. That would be a much better goal that just scrambling to pump out a bunch of words. You could ask 1,000 successful writers if what you are doing is a reasonable path toward becoming a better writer, and they would say "no." It might be right for some people, but not you. Your focus needs to be on learning the art of the craft, not filling pages with words. I'd say, judging from your writing, that your most fundamental problem, and the one that will preclude you from ever being anything more than a hack, is: you don't read enough. No one ever became a good writer without being a voracious reader. I would suggest your goal should be to spend at least two hours a day deep reading good literary fiction (not genre crap), and maybe you could learn a little about the craft. You should also read some of the classic books on writing. If you don't all this other is just wheel spinning.
Robert