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Obstacles

My goal for the next twelve months is to write an average of 1,000 words per day. Which doesn’t sound like a lot, but life gets busy from time to time and it might not always be possible to write.

I have done my best to minimise the number of days where I won’t be able to write at all by being flexible about the tools I use, but that might not be enough. A few occasions when I might not write during the next few months: 

Christmas Day: I don’t know what we will do, but this is the one day of the year when I’m unlikely to be the first person to wake up. I might snatch a few minutes here and there during the day, but I don’t want to be absent from my family.

New Year’s Day: This is also Tamzin’s birthday, so I’m unlikely to find time to sit down and write anything.

Moving House: We are decorating the house in order to sell it and move early next year. I’ve done enough house moves now to know that it’s going to disrupt my writing.

Holidays: If everything goes according to plan (and it never does) then next year, after we’ve moved, we are planning to go to Disney Land in Paris. As far as writing goes, holidays are as disruptive as moving house, so I doubt I will get to do much, if anything, while I’m away.

There are probably going to be other disruptions as well, but I think it should be okay.

Like I said, I’m aiming for an average of 1,000 words a day to hit 365,000 words over the entire year. That means it doesn’t really matter if I write 2,000 words one day, and then nothing the following day, because I will still average 1,000 words on each of those days.

Although I am going to be aiming for 1,000 words every day, I’m never going to hit exactly that number. Instead, I’m expecting to go somewhere over it most days. And even if it’s only a couple of hundred words a day, that still means that every five days I will have built up my average enough that I can bank a whole day when I won’t be able to write.

As far as reporting that, my plan is to keep a tally in a spreadsheet and each daily blog post will have the current status at the bottom, like this:

Words written today: 

Words written total: 

Plus / Minus target: 

That should show where I am overall and hopefully mean that on those days when my writing is disrupted, I don’t fall far behind and can actually enjoy my time without worrying about it.

Scary Season

Last night, while I was cooking dinner, Tamzin and Oscar put up our Halloween decorations. I know it’s only the start of the month, but we do this most years. Usually while listening to the soundtrack from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

It seems that every year Christmas decorations go up sooner, and stay up longer, and as much as I enjoy Christmas, I find this annoying. Not so much with Halloween. I think, if I had it my way, we would leave the Halloween decorations up all year around.

I have always enjoyed Halloween, and am looking forward to a season of watching seasonal specials and films. One that has quickly become a family tradition is Muppets Haunted Mansion. Obviously we will also watch The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Corpse Bride. Then on Halloween itself, after Oscar is in bed, Tamzin and I will watch a proper scary movie.

Eventually, of course, the decorations will have to come down to make way for Christmas things.

If you are looking for a scary read this Halloween season, why not check out Unhallowed Ground, the newly remastered edition is currently on sale for $0.99 for a limited time only:

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