Oct 23, 2024
I haven’t spoken much about reading recently so thought I’d give you a quick update on where I am with that.
I started off October with a plan to make it a habit to read for 40 minutes per day. And that went well but it didn’t really feel like enough.
Back in the day, ten years ago probably, I was reading so much. I was getting through 75+ books a year. Now I’m currently on 32 books for the year and in 2023, I only read 36 books total.
It’s not that I don’t love reading. It’s one of my favourite things to do, but there’s always something else that’s easier to do and there are so many distractions and… you know how it goes.
There are a lot of personal reasons why my reading has taken a hit. Just looking at the dates when it dropped off it’s easy to connect it to Jude.dropped off it’s easy to connect it to Jude. And that makes sense.
The thing is, reading and writing are so closely connected that trying to get back into writing without getting back into reading isn’t going to work.
So in the last couple of weeks I’ve been reading a lot more. I’m listening to audiobooks, I have three digital books on the go and most of the time when I’m not writing, I’m reading. I’m not tracking any of it in the short term, but the numbers will be reflected in the number of books I finish each year.
I’m enjoying it a lot and really enjoying it.
And on the writing stuff: that went very well, but nothing to really tell you about that.
—
Pre-Production
Stories planned (total): 8
Production
Words written today: 1,150
Words written total: 26,496
Plus / Minus target: +2,496
Currently writing: Son of Mars
Oct 18, 2024
I began the day by starting Son of Mars from scratch again, only to decide a few words into that I had it right first time and went back to the original. A bit frustrating, but these things happen sometimes.
The beginning of the story is moving quite slowly, and I think some of it is going to turn out to be world building that doesn’t appear in the final version, but that’s fine. It is set a few hundred years before The Last Outpost so it needs a bit of fine tuning.
I have been thinking about how I am going to track my progress here on planning and editing without dumping loads of numbers at the bottom that don’t mean very much. In the next few days you will see a new statistics footer.
This is the 26th day in a row that I have published this blog and that’s probably the most I’ve ever done. They are generally quite short though, so that only adds up to around 6,000 words. There are some longer topics that I want to write about here, but at the moment I’m just figuring everything out and getting a lot of new habits locked in.
—
Words written today: 1,043
Words written total: 20,876
Plus / Minus target: +1,876
Currently writing: Son of Mars
Currently publishing: n/a
Latest release: n/a
Oct 17, 2024
I finished the first draft of The Last Outpost this morning and went straight onto the next story. I enjoyed writing a space story enough that this one is set in the same universe, although much earlier in history when the construction of a Mars colony is taking place.
Son of Mars is the story I planned yesterday. It’s only a very vague outline, but it gives me enough to get started and know roughly where I’m heading.
I also outlined another story, also set in the space colony universe that could be the next story I write, or not, by then I should have a few options to choose from.
—
Words written today: 1,028
Words written total: 19,833
Plus / Minus target: +1,833
Currently writing: Son of Mars
Currently publishing: n/a
Latest release: n/a
Oct 15, 2024
Started a little bit late this morning, but got all the words I needed for the day. The story is nearing the end and it hasn’t gone quite the way I expected. There might be one or two days left of it, which will bring it to around the 10,000 words mark.
I think I have figured out an approach for the editing, and that is to treat it as an entirely separate challenge that will begin in November. My goal will be to average 25 minutes per day, although there are two days a week when I won’t often be able to edit, so on the days when I can, the aim will be 35 minutes.
Not sure if that will be enough to edit and publish 5,000 words a week, but it will be a start, and much closer to that goal than not editing anything at all.
—
Words written today: 1,161
Words written total: 17,654
Plus / Minus target: +1,654
Currently writing: The Last Outpost
Currently publishing: Sisterhood
Latest release: n/a
Oct 14, 2024
I’m not sure why but this morning felt like a slog. I got my 1,000+ words, but only just made it before I had to stop and get on with other things. Tomorrow will probably be better.
On the editing side of things: I am thinking about kicking it all off in November. I’m not sure exactly how that’s going to work, but I think I need to find a similar approach to what I’m doing with first draft stuff.
It’s not that I don’t want to edit, but something else always seems to get in the way.
The simplest thing would be to make a daily commitment to an amount of time, and maybe increase that gradually, as I am doing with reading.
At the end of the day, I got my words done, so I am counting that as a win.
—
Words written today: 1,037
Words written total: 16,493
Plus / Minus target: +1,493
Currently writing: The Last Outpost
Currently publishing: Sisterhood
Latest release: n/a
