That year end thang…
It’s that end of the year look-back-look-forward time.
At least it is for me, and in particular, in terms of my writing.
I did not make my writing goals for 2016.
I’d wanted to write 500,000 words.
I’m only going to manage 410,000 words or so. (Final count yet to be determined.)
Why didn’t I make my goal?
From Jan-June, I was having 12-15 migraines a month. That made it seriously difficult to meet my word count every week.
July-August, I finally managed to get the migraines down to 3-4 a month. However, in July, I was still having headaches almost every day. Come August, I had significantly lowered the number of headaches I was having and was able to write more.
So I was poised to take a run at the writing…only to get sick. I hadn’t been ill for 18+ months. But starting in September, I came down with four different illnesses over the course of six weeks. And the writing took a hit as a result.
Master publishing workshop happened at the end of October-and I ended up sick again.
Now, I have written more words this year than last.
I have to count what I managed to do as a win, despite not making my goal.
400K+ words really isn’t anything to sneeze at.
Looking forward…I’m going to take another run at my 500,000 word goal again in 2017.
I’m much more stable in terms of my migraines. I generally only have one really bad week per month, and am migraine free the rest of the time.
I need to focus on the writing during those weeks. 15,000 words a week or more. Then, when the bad weeks come (and they will come) I’ll be able to slack off and still make my word count. (I am seeing an acupuncturist, so hopefully the bad weeks won’t be as bad.)
The good news is that I’m really excited about the writing. In January I’ll start “The White Harp” - a fantasy trilogy set 1000 years in the future after the “novels never to be published.” I have other novels planned as well as short stories.
Life is good.
I will probably do a publishing post, looking-backwards-and-forwards next.
How has your year been? What are you looking forward to?
Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.