Tag: December

Writing Update: Change the Plan, Not the Goal

This past week, writing has been hard. It’s after November, so the post November writing slump surprised me yet again this year.

The goal was and still is to write “The End” in the novel I started in November by December 31st. The plan was to write 1.5K-2K a day until finished.

But last week was rough. The joy of writing toward a goal with friends in November was gone (the competition always seems to dry up in December). I reached the approximate middle of the novel (the muddy middle). Writing began to feel like a chore.

“I’ll do it later” was the excuse I told myself almost daily. “I’ll slog through it after work between 11pm and Midnight.”

I missed the goal on the 3rd of December and that set me off on a spiral of “Ugh’s”. But, despite missing the 1.5-2K goal, I did make just over 1000 words.

So rather than giving up and slogging through a larger goal, I gave myself a boon. I allowed myself to write 1000 words or approximately 30 minutes instead of my 40-45 minutes per day. I was gentle with myself, allowed a small break for a week, and the results were staggering.

After that week, a new inspiration came. A new drive to get to the end of the novel and make December the best writing month in years. I made it through several middle scenes that were intimidating, I added in a new plot I was playing with but uncertain about, and I made it through a few chapters at a more leisurely pace.

But, in order to make my goal of 50-60K for the month, that means I’ll have to write a little more in the next upcoming weeks and push myself a little further.

The new plan is 2K a day, or 60 minutes of writing broken up in 15 minute chunks throughout the day.

Thankfully, the little break motivated me to keep pushing forward and helped me find more joy in the project again.

It looks like this year, I will make my goal of writing 365 days a year. The excitement is palpable as we all reach the finish line.

See you next week!

 

December Results and 2021 Year End Wrap Up

December Results

Finish an Open Project

December seemed to get away from me this year. I had lots of plans to write and create and finish an open project, but with getting sick (thankfully not COVID, but a nasty chest cold), working long hours through December and finishing up a class for my Bachelor’s program, finishing a writing project wasn’t as easy as I had hoped. I still made a lot of progress and wrote every day, but some projects will need to be extended into 2022.

Read One Book (That isn’t related to school)

In December I managed to start a lot of books, mainly non-fiction. I have a few novels I’ve started to read and then had to put down, but I am happy to say, I finished a book. And even better than that, it was an actual print book. I can’t remember the last time I sat down and read an actual book with pages. Even better than that, the book also has a sequel so I definitely know what I’m reading next. Stay tuned!

Word Count: 9,643

2021 Year End Wrap Up

Write every day of 2021:

As hard as I tried this year, it was not possible to write every day. Whether it was a distraction such as a new job, or taking a day off for vacation or studies, this year it simply wasn’t possible to write every single day. While there were some days where not writing was necessary, a lot of it also had to do with sheer laziness or distraction. Still, I persisted and toward the later half of the year I set up good habits for myself

Here are my percentages for the months of 2021:

January: 97%, with a total of 30/31 days.

February: 96%, with a total of 27/28 days.

March: 77%, with a total of 24/31 days.

April: 33.3%, with a total of 10/30 days.

May: 67%, with a total of 21/31 days

June: 100%

July: 100%

August: 100%

September: 100%

October: 100%

November: 100%

December: 100%

Finish writing at least 4 novels:

  1. Strange Birds- Finished February 4th, 2021
  2. Coming Back as We Are- Finished July 24th, 2021
  3. My Heart With You- Finished September 29th, 2021

Read at least 6 books:

  1. Piece By Piece- Tori Amos and Ann Powers- finished February 2021
  2. A Court of Silver Flames- Sarah J. Maas- finished March 2021
  3. Bridge of Souls-Victoria/V.E Schwab- finished May 2021
  4. Shakespeare Sonnets and Plays: Henry V, Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, Hamlet- September to October 2021
  5. Steal Like An Artist/Show Your Work- Austin Kleon- Finished October 2021
  6. Spellbreaker- Charlie N Holmberg- Finished December 2021

Gain More Confidence in my writing abilities:

  1. Participated in NYC Midnight’s Short Story competition- January 2021
    Unfortunately, for this competition, I didn’t make it past round one. It was definitely fun to write something in a genre I never have before.
  2. Participated in NYC Midnight’s Microfiction Competition- May 2021
    Unfortunately, I didn’t make it past round one in this competition. Still, I put myself out there and had some fun writing a story in under 100 words.
  3. Participated in NYC Midnight’s Flash Fiction Competition- July 2021
    This year, I really enjoyed the Flash Fiction Competition. My first genre was historical fiction, but the round I had the most fun with was the second round where I got to write a horror story. I was super excited to get second place with my horror story. I didn’t quite make it to round three, but I am quite proud of my work.

Send out something for Publishing:

This year, I started with an editing plan. I was going to finish editing this novel I’ve been sitting on for years, send it out and hopefully hear back by the time 2022 rolled around. Unfortunately, with distractions and new projects and everything else going on, I didn’t send out anything original for publishing. I did however post a lot of pieces online and through Fanfiction websites.

Miscellaneous, but Writing Related

  1. Started a creative writing bachelor’s program.
  2. Built some book shelves, got chairs, a new desk lamp, and a new office chair to make a true writing space for myself.
  3. Created a new instagram for my doodles.
  4. Participated in Instawrimo and Inktober and built up my online presence.

Yearly Word Count: 221,122

One Final Note: Thank you to you, reading this. Thank you for spending some time with me in 2021 as I create and blog. May 2022 be a great year for us both!

December Results and Year End Summary

December Results:

Finish My NaNoWriMo 2020 Project

Sadly, I did not finish my NaNoWriMo 2020 project before the end of 2020. I made great progress in November, writing a massive amount of words and getting through a good portion of plot, but progress stalled in December.

What I did end up doing, no matter how small, is write every single day except for Christmas. Slowly, but surely the plot is chugging along still, even into January.

Finish Several Open Projects

As a typical writer, I’m not happy unless I have several projects open. This month, I made a lot of progress in a few projects, but didn’t close as many of them as I wanted (or really any of them). I tried and that’s what important. As mentioned above, the only day I missed writing was Christmas. Hopefully I won’t miss any days in 2021!

Read One Book

While I didn’t finish any books this month, I currently have a few books I’ve started, but haven’t finished. Fiction and Nonfiction currently, but at least I’m still reading!

Personal Growth

As far as personal growth goes, I’ve made several positive changes in the month of December. I’ve started walking more on my days off and getting exercise in. I’ve started to care more for my mental health and start meditating or at least remembering to breathe. These are small changes, but in the long run will help overall. I’m feeling better than I was in October and November and I can only hope the trend continues.

Word Count: 17,687

Accomplishments in 2020

January

In January, a lot of things changed at once. I started a new relationship and got rid of a lot of things and people that were no longer serving me. At first it hurt, but looking back now, there would have been no other way for things to go. I needed to grow, and sometimes growth can hurt.

February

In February, I had a few health scares, which really changed how I viewed taking care of myself and my relationship with myself. Thankfully, they were merely scares and not full blown health issues. I was lucky in that regard. I also wrote a short story during this month and it was exciting to work on something new.

March

March was quite honestly a huge disaster as far as life outside of writing. As a nurse I was working during the whole pandemic and shutdown. Stress was high for sure. Writing was a much needed stress relief and sanctuary and I’m so glad for it!

April

April, for being April, was a pretty decent month. Every April there are some hard anniversaries to face, but there is also Camp NaNoWriMo, which helped me get back in the writing mojo. I finished my NaNoWriMo 2019 novel in April of this year.

May

In May, I did a few creative things. I started editing a novel and wrote a blog challenge for the whole month. Mostly productive but flew by in a blur due to work and the pandemic.

June

In June, I started reading again and made some changes and improvements to the blog. It was a great start to the rest of the year as far as reading and blogging. Writing was decent in June, but it was still more edits than anything else.

July

Camp NaNoWriMo came around again in July and I reached my goal for writing. Edits still continued and I competed in a flash fiction writing contest. The flash fiction writing contest was a learning experience and a lot of fun!

August

I finished edits on a previous book in August, which was a huge relief. I got results back from the flash fiction writing contest and completed round 2 with some decent results. It was a great month for my writing and editing goals.

September

The highlight of September was definitely the writer’s conference, even though true to 2020 it was all on Zoom. I learned quite a bit, and even now, I plan on putting what I learned into practice.

October

I had so many great plans for October that ended up falling through in the end. Overall, I let my emotions have too much control and let my goals barely even get off the ground. Progress was made, but nothing big was finished.

November

NaNoWriMo appeared in November once again and it was an amazing month for writing goals. I made great progress in the novel and am still continuing it. I read a great book and overall November had to be one of the best months of 2020.

December

While my actual goals were not met, I enjoyed myself this December. I wrote almost every day on several projects. I was able to read parts of several books. I’ve been able to take care of myself and feel more rounded. It’s been a good month and overall a decent year for it being a global pandemic.

Total Words: 272,375

Here’s hoping 2021 is better! Happy New Year!