Right on pace with my word count goals for the year with 227,069 words so far!

I haven’t done a word count update in ages so let’s just get right into things with our friend the potato:

227,069 words out of 400,000!
(I feel like I am always using the exhausted potato graphic but it’s always the one that best fits…)

One thing you’ll notice right away is that I upped my writing goal for the year to 400,000. It was originally 200,000 words but I got ahead very early so I upped it to 300,000 for a few months before finally just taking the plunge and doubling it. My new percentage based system is still working out really well and that’s a big part of why I raised it. To me, a challenge is only worth setting if it’s difficult to reach and I’ve been on pace this entire year which I knew meant I needed to up it to make myself sweat a little more. I was already on pace to hit 375K anyway, based on how many words per day I’ve been writing, so it wasn’t really that much of a stretch.

I’m averaging 1,109 words a day, which is much more than I ever imagined I’d be at right now. I’m not writing every day, it’s just impossible with how little time I have, but I’m writing enough on the days that I do get that it’s averaging out to over 1k a day, something I’m very pleased about. (Thank you, Catholic school, for home row skills and the fact that I type really freaking fast!) And while writing will probably never be a daily thing for me and my insane life, I am writing much more often which makes for less binge writing (which has always been my vice). All in all, I’m very pleased with that number. 

As for the percentage benchmarks, here’s where I am currently: All of my writing taken together, 34% is Fiction, 66% is Non-fiction. Of that, 68% is Focused writing (that’s writing that’s specifically on projects, editing, etc) while 32% is Free (journal entries, blog posts like this, etc). While I’d prefer that Free stay under 25%, most of that is me writing down things I don’t want to forget about the little one in a journal so I’m not going to cut back on that, that’s for sure. But I’m thrilled my productive writing is so far above 50% and, though I wasn’t specifically tracking it before, I know that’s much better than past years. I’ve gotten several projects done and made headway in many others which is huge.

Lastly, at the moment, I am exactly at 50% Non-Fiction, 25% Playwrighting, and 25% Prose out of the Focused writing. I’m trying to do extra work on Fiction this month to see if it’s feasible to get them all back to a third but I’m really leaning towards just modifying the goal to be this exact split.  That’s how the situation keeps naturally skewing anyway which seems like a good indication it’s the right thing to do, especially since Non-Fiction is the bigger $$$ earner anyway, something I hate to care about but, yeah, fact of life…

I also signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo this month just because I like to give myself a little kick in the pants every now and again and I’m currently at 37,636 out of 50,000 there. My average words per month for the year has been 31,439 so a 50k month makes things a little harder and I think that’s good. I would love to get to the point where every month of the year is at least a 50k month but I don’t know if that will ever be possible. Still, something to strive for!

If you’re reading this and thinking, why the hell does she keep making it harder on herself when she’s already struggling, the answer is simple: It’s not going to get any easier. The more work I can train myself to do under pressure, the more I’ll get done even if things get more crazy. I like to think of it as jogging with a weighted vest, building muscles that will serve you even when you’re moving with a regular load. Someday there may be after school activities, homework projects, maybe even other kids. I’m not getting any younger or sharper. If I can’t force myself to do as much as I can handle now while it’s easy, relatively speaking, I’ll never be able to handle it later.  And, frankly, considering how little time I get to work now and how much I have managed to get done with that little bit of time and sleep?  (toddler is the most amazingly flawless little sass-monkey and I enjoy every freaking second with her but she still doesn’t nap much, now less than ever, so there’s not much chance to work during the day) I’m pretty darn impressed with myself.

Let’s just hope I can not only keep it up but build on my momentum. Things can change on a dime so I’m taking nothing for granted. But, for the moment, I feel a little bit proud.

Anyway, back to work… 😉