I didn’t intend “A Month of Writing” to be a monthly post, but I think some people might be curious how my adventure with 365k Club goes – and whether it goes at all. Just as I expected, February turned out a bit rough, due to both life circumstances and distractions I brought onto myself. Believe me, buying the video game you’ve been waiting to play so badly really can mess up your writing times… Yes, at the beginning of February I finally got my hands on “Dragon Age: Inquisition”. It took over 60 hours off my writing month, but I got to exercise my discipline when it was time for the final save game and sitting down to do my 1k words. I also tried to do my daily writing before I launched the game, but it didn’t always work during the weekdays.
And when I finally took a break from the game (which was pretty much all I expected from it), I ended up binge-watching “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D”, and made it through the whole season in a time it usually takes me to even consider watching something. But writing started to become like brushing my teeth. It’s something I just have to do every day, and I managed to keep my word count growing steadily, never missing a day of writing, thus making it 59 consecutive days of writing so far. I admit there were few close calls, when I seriously considered skipping a day, or writing just a few words, but I wasn’t ready to give up just yet.
I also have to admit I slowed down, and it wasn’t only because of the distractions. With over 60k words in my new novel (mostly written in the past two months), and two short stories finished, I realized I’m reaching to the point where I used all the fleshed-out ideas, and the time for plotting will soon come, which means more thinking and less writing. I can’t say I’m excited about it, but it will be, in the end, just another challenge, and I hope to train myself to be able to “plot on the go”. And regardless of my slower pace. I still managed to write my daily 1000 words, and just didn’t try to make it much more. Instead I tried to carve a bit of time for other activities and although the editing of my previous novel still is pretty much untouched (and let’s be honest, this will most likely be the last thing I pick – when forced to choose between it and the housework), I started reading more again, and I’m close to finishing my sewing project.
It seems that my routine is slowly stabilizing, and even though there are still challenges ahead, I’m happy to see my word count grow daily, thousand by thousand. I’m satisfied with my two short stories, “Sanne i drewno” (“Sanne and the wood”) and “Dreams of Airships”, and very excited about how the dark fantasy novel is going. And more ideas, even if not fully outlined yet, are waiting for their turn.
If everything goes well, by the end of the this month I’ll be celebrating 100k words written in 2015. And the year had just started. Who knows how many more stories it’ll bring?
This post is a part of “A Month of Writing” series, feel free to browse through other related posts.
If you do get into the habit of writing regularly, it’s always a bit of a shock to see just how fast the words rack up… Congratulations – it’s an achievement!
Indeed, I’m still a bit dumbfound when I look at the total wordcount for this year. But the feeling of being productive is priceless.
The gaming distractions sound familiar . . .
Sometimes when I write a lot of words in a short amount of time, I have to refill the creative battery, so to say. So maybe the ‘distractions’ are simply your way of percolating the idea-machine in your subconscious?
I’ve written ‘Write 1000 words today’ in my planner for 2 weeks, but I’m not remotely consistent (read: I’ve hardly written), so excellent for sticking to your goals! I didn’t know a 365k club existed, but it sounds like something I should be signing up for. Keep going!
Thank you for kind words! 🙂
I’m very similar to you – write a lot, then recharge, but recently I decided to try to be more consistent with my writing. And yes, gaming is both a distraction and imagination-fuel, the trick is for it to be more of the latter… but you probably know yourself.
As for planning – if you’re like me, planning to write 1k words won’t probably work too well. I planned on starting with only 500 hundred (alright, this was still quite ambitious), and I think it’s more important to work on the routine than than on the amount.
365k Club started in a Facebook group, “10 minute Novelists” and I’m happy I decided to join it. It really gave me a push.
I admire you. I am still clearing the backlog after my flu and cannot do anything more.
I have backlog of other stuff to clear and I didn’t have flu to use it as an excuse.