January went by pretty quickly, but I feel pretty good about how I’ve started off the year. I was on a pretty good rhythm with both writing and going to the gym.

Last week, I attended a four-day seminar at work, which included later-than-usual nights and a couple dinners. It was a great time, but it threw me off my routine a little bit. I should be able to jump back in pretty easily though.

Last Month’s Goals

1. Write 10,000 words for WoEL or my short story.
2. Continue going to the gym.
3. Stay ahead on my blogging.

So, how did I actually do?

Write 10,000 words total?

No, but I have definitely improved. I wrote 4,560 words in January, all for my first draft of “Survivor”. That’s not even halfway to 10,000, but let’s take a step back and recall that I wrote barely more than that from October through December.

So my new writing process is definitely working for me.

Since I’m writing “Survivor” by hand, I’m not actually counting each word on each page. I wrote the first five pages (one page being a front and back sheet) and averaged the totals. That gives me about 570 words per page. That just helps me keep track of how long this story is, since I’m aiming for part one to fall in the 30k range.

In order to write 10,000 words for this story in a month, I need to write 18 pages, or 10,260 words. However, I’d like to finish this first draft a bit more quickly, so we’ll see if I can pick up my pace in a shortened month.

By the way, comment below if you know of a word counter type app where I can track my progress on an ongoing basis, potentially across multiple projects.

Continue going to the gym?

Yes! I went something like every 3-4 days until last week, which, again, was a little crazy at work. But it was frequently enough that I started to feel comfortable again physically. This month, I really want to get to that 2-3 times per week cadence.

Stay ahead on my blogging?

Somewhat. The last two weeks I’ve written my Wednesday posts on the night before, which isn’t great. But I feel like I’ve been able to put more thought into my posts so far without losing additional valuable writing time.

I’m really interested to see how this schedule impacts my stats month to month, but it may not be as drastically as I’d feared when I cut my posting volume to start the year. I’ll definitely touch on that in my first quarterly update.

Fun fact: I’ve averaged 493 words per post so far in 2020. With an even split between haiku (extremely short) and longer-form posts, that’s not likely to waiver much.

I’ve also been reading more blogs again, which is nice.

Goals for February

I kind of already told you what my goals will be, but here’s the short version:

1. Write at least 10,000 words in WoEL or “Survivor”. I’d really like to hit that mark. It has been oh so long.
2. Go to the gym 2-3 times per week. I’m already behind this week, but I can catch up!

I guess that’s it for the month. These two require some actual commitment, so I like the idea of focusing in on them.

What are your goals for the month?

Steve D