In case you haven’t noticed, progress on Manuscript: Beta has been slow for the last few weeks. This has been due to a number of factors, some of which are my fault.
I’ve been averaging something like 6,000 words per week, which is not terrible, but is still pretty bad. I’d love to average 10,000 words per week.
Tuesday night, as I was working on a section, I did some organizing. I track my writing daily and weekly to see if I’m meeting my goals and where I’m falling short. Since beginning Manuscript: Beta in December, I have written:
- 24,847 words in December
- 26,415 words in January
- 13,979 words in February
That’s pathetic. And here’s why…
That is how I progressed over the final two weeks of February, with the middle column representing daily words written and the right column representing total word count on my manuscript. Those zeroes are not helping me. (For the record, Jessie was in town for most of that chunk of no progress. Clearly, she has a negative impact on my writing :P)
I also jumped ahead a bit and laid out my projected word counts through the end of my book (about 180,000 words). I am currently on pace to finish WoEM in…
mid-June — and no, that’s not a good thing. I’ve been hoping to have it completed by May. The pressure is on!
To add to this pressure, Present Wife and I are going on a two-week trip through Europe in April. That’s 14 days when I can basically assume I won’t write a damn thing. That’s a 12,000-20,000-word hole in my writing schedule. And if I want to finish by May, I can’t come back from my trip with 100,000+ words to write.
So now, after taking three months to write 69k words, I’m effectively trying to double my output in half the time.
For the month of March, I want to break:
120,000 words!!!!
That’s NaNo-level writing, something I have not achieved since NaNo 2015. Am I crazy? Yes. Am I putting a lot of pressure on myself? Yes. Do I realize that I am the only person putting this kind of pressure on myself? Yes.
Good. As long as we’re all on the same page.
Writing Goal for 3/10: 11,000 words, 80,000 words total
Now, here’s the thing. I feel like I need a writing buddy. Someone who can keep tabs on me (and vice versa) to make sure we’re both achieving our self-mandated goals.
So who’s with me?!
Let me know in the comments if you want to be my writing buddy for March. We can exchange emails or gchats or even Facebook messages if you like.
It’s crunch time!
Steve D
Evening Satellite Publishing 
March is a design and editing month for me, but I’d be happy to pester you about word counts. A lesson I learned (too late). There’s a balance between getting the product out and getting it right. I have nightly goals. It’s all I can manage with a day job as well. most days, I exceed that goal, but I also demand a bit more of my self editing. My editor for Caught told me that the freedom of being an unknown author is the liberty to take my time to be sure my product is right. So, if you want someone to push you, I can. You can pester me about how many chapters I laid out. Then, when I get Sojourn back from editors, you can pester me about revisions. Which I hate. I hate revisions. A lot.
Deal. That’s a good point about being an unknown author, and I definitely recognize that no one is nipping at my heels to have this book published, As of this moment my word count sits at 72,848, and I’d love to break 75k today. Where are you at in your editing/laying out?
Already met my goal of 1 chapter laid out and scanned (doing a proofread as well). About to start another chapter. I’d like to finish the first part of JOBD today.
I’m now at 73,734. Just need to organize the next couple of section to make sure I know where I’m headed… and wash the dishes.
I’m proofing a chapter. That’ll have to be where I put the pin before I stop for some plans I have.