Can I just say that I’m a bit weirded out with the new block format for WordPress? I guess I’ll try to get used to it, but I preferred the old format much better. Well, we’ll try to go with this and see what happens.

I’ll also note that the featured picture with this blog was one of the many images that came up when I searched for “Up and down,” which is how my writing has gone these past two weeks.

There’s not much to mention right now. The consistency is not there, but there is more consistency in my creation than there was in the bad old days. At least I feel unaccomplished if I don’t write something, which is a big growth area for me compared to where I was 20 years ago… wow, just typing that out blows my mind.

However, I know that what I’m writing right now, even if it is fan fiction, is good quality based on the reactions of those visiting the AO3 site where I have posted this and the comments. I think I will have to do a separate blog post about how I’ve become part of this online fan fiction community and how it has honestly given me just as much validation as getting my original work published for the first time. For the first time in my life, I am writing just to write, for the sheer joy of telling a story, and I have to tell you it is one of the most liberating things that has ever happened to me.

Some of the writing has been inconsistent as far as production goes since I was busy trying to fulfill some last minute job obligations to the school district I am departing from. Those are over, however, and it will be interesting to see how things change as we get into June and the lazy month.

I’m going to get more LOTR read as well and get more video reviews done (ha ha, promises of a procrastinator).

My high school graduating daughter has inspired me to take up Minecraft again, so that’s cut into my time.

Ugh.

Anyway, here are the stats. I promise to start getting these posts done weekly again. *

*As I pray St. Augustine’s prayer of the libertine… “Lord, may I be chaste, but not yet.” (I’m paraphrasing.)

Week of May 17:

+4,634 words written.

Days writing: 3 of 7.

Days revising/planning: 2 of 7 for 75 total minutes.

Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 4 of 7 days.

Week of May 24:

+4,086 words written.

Days writing: 3 of 7.

Days revising/planning: 0 of 7 for 0 total minutes.

Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 3 of 7 days.

[NOTE: Today’s featured photo is what I got when I searched the free WordPress image library for “writer’s block.” Go figure.]

 

It was a tale of two weeks for me (should I have made that the title of this post? Ah, forget it). The first week was an absolute disaster, the first week in a long while that I was totally shut out, shut down, purely blocked from writing. I didn’t quite write nothing, but it was very close to that. Then, I had a week that wasn’t perfect (there were two days where I didn’t write anything), but I wound up with the highest weekly word count total of 2020 to date. Go figure.

 

I’ll try to figure out why it was the case, though. Not to get into too many details, but I found myself writing a big, dialogue-heavy scene that had a lot of interplay between different characters and a lot of moving parts. However, I had this feeling that it was going to drag on for too long, and it would take forever to write. Normally, my instinct would be to cut the scene entirely and just move on to something I wanted to write, but I didn’t feel I could do something like that in this circumstance because it added quite a bit to the characterization of the plot. So, I sat and stewed at the screen for more than a few days. Not writing is something I wanted to avoid, so this was bad.

 

Finally, I made the decision to cut the scene in half and break it off one-half as long as I was planning to do. And with that, the words started flowing again. It’s just a reminder that, just like many people prefer the things they read to be in smaller bites, whether that is books, chapters, or paragraphs, it can also be easier to write in those smaller bites.

 

Well, that is it for right now. The rest of May will see me finish up some last minute special education work for my current district, celebrate my daughter’s graduation, and Memorial Day. Plus, more writing.

 

That’s it for now. Stay safe more than ever, and here’s the stats for the past two weeks.

 

Week #1:

+206 words written.

Days writing: 1 of 7.

Days revising/planning: 0 of 7 for 0 total minutes.

Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 0 of 7 days.

Week #2:

+10,852 words written.

Days writing: 5 of 7.

Days revising/planning: 0 of 7 for 0 total minutes.

Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 5 of 7 days.

Here’s another look at my fuzzy pal Winston who likes to hang with me when I’m writing or basically doing anything else in recent times.

 

Not too much to write about. My weekly stats dropped again for the second week in a row; I’ll need to reverse that this week. I think I’m at a section of this one thing I’m working on (Project D, in case you were curious; you can read the work in progress here) that I’m a bit intimidated by because I want it to seem natural and witty and I’m not sure I’ll pull it off that well. Anyway, I need to get on with it because I don’t want to be working on this project for the next two years or whatever.

 

This week, I’ll try and shake myself out of my pandemic isolation stupor and try and do something with some other projects, like one fine tuning of Project A and getting some more Lord of the Rings read. And, I’ll be working on teaching, as well.

 

Here’s the stats. Writers, keep writing, and everyone keep safe.

 

+3,814 words written.

Days writing:  5 of 7.

Days revising/planning: 1 of 7 for 30 total minutes.

Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 5 of 7 days.