Month: July 2022

Writing Journal 27 July 2022: Great writing week and progress on other fronts

[PHOTO NOTE: This was the first thing that popped up when I did an image search for “progress.” You’re welcome.]

Last week just goes to show that you never know.

I was expecting to have a bad writing week since I was going off on vacation last weekend. You might remember that it prompted me to do a blog about writing on vacation. I figured, “well, it will be a wash.” But then, I think that idea of a fall-off gave me the motivation to not fall off… and as a result, I had the best writing week since early April of this year.

I feel myself getting to be a stronger writer. I have so much to learn still, but I’m believing that I’m only going to get better at this.

One quick note as well – I finally got myself signed up for an account on Kindle Direct Publishing. I’m going to be reading a lot of material and advice before moving forward and publishing my first self-publishing project. However, that process is finally moving forward. I think with a bit of research and the assistance of my writing group, I have every confidence that I should be able to make this thing work.

Well, I’m getting back to it, then. Hope you have a great week, and all of you writers keep writing.

Writing statistics for the week ending 23 July 2022:
+6,305 words written.
Days writing: 6 of 7.
Days revising/planning: 1 of 7 for 30 total minutes.
Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 6 of 7 days.

Writing When You Are Away From Home

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Writing Journal, 20 July 2022: Part of my frustration with keeping the numbers up

[PHOTO NOTE: I image-searched “frustration,” and this was one of the images that came up. Yeah, it’s really complex.]

The numbers were not quite as good as last week, but this week I have a decent excuse for it – an excuse that leads me into thinking of some of the frustrations I have with trying to reach this 200,000-word goal this year.

Back last Saturday, I posted a review of the writing/blogging service Substack. I actually thought it was a nice little review. I also ended up using much of the information that I had gathered for my article for a presentation for my writing group. It ended up going over pretty well with them.

However, it took me a long time to research and plan for both that article and the presentation. I logged in 300 hours of planning and/or revising during that week (not all of that was dedicated to the article, but much of it was), and that took away at least some time from actually writing stuff.

I go back and forth about whether I need to judge myself differently from some of the other writers that I know because most of the ones I know now are doing this full-time. I’m still doing it on my off-time… then again, this is the summer for me. (Insert shrugging gif or emoticon here.)

Well, I still am proud of what I did last week, despite the “lower production.” Anyway, I’ll make sure to put something out this weekend, as well.

Here’s the stats. See you around.

Writing statistics for the week ending 16 July 2022:
+3,111 words written.
Days writing: 3 of 7.
Days revising/planning: 3 of 7 for 300 total minutes.
Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 3 of 7 days.

Substack: A review

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Writing Journal, 13 July 2022: Good (acceptable?) start to the month

[PHOTO NOTE: The picture was the first thing that came up when I put “July” in the photo search.

Last week was… acceptable, if not good from a writing perspective. I’m ahead of the game regarding my writing pace, although I’m frankly disappointed that I didn’t get more blog posts done than what I have done.

However, I am working on a presentation that I will be giving this weekend to my writing group, and it will be a presentation on the blogging and subscription website Substack. As part of my work on giving that presentation to the group, I will be putting together a blog post and review of the site – basically, my first impressions after starting to use and experiment with it.

Not much else to mention about that, although I will be posting that midday on Saturday (16 July 2022).

Anyway, that’s it for now. Stats are below. Take care everyone.

Writing statistics for the week ending 9 July 2022:
+4,895 words written.
Days writing: 5 of 7.
Days revising/planning: 1 of 7 for 60 total minutes.
Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 6 of 7 days.

Writing Journal 7.6.2022: Limping into July

I had some personal things come up last week with that messed with my writing schedule and then I went into a slight unrelated mini-slump which there’s not much of an excuse for. The former is not to be worried about – it’s certainly not life or death – and the latter is just up to me.

I will say that last week was not a totally unproductive disaster because it was at least four times as productive as my worst week of the year LOL. And even considering that it was a long month, my performance was still better than last month’s.

I’m not spending much time on this because I do want to write some substantial articles this week and not just me talking about writing progress (although I’m going to work on a first-half of the year recap lol). I have the Fourth of July coming up, so I’ll try to think of something that I can write on my phone. There’s a quick checkup next week which will be a bit thorough, and then I’m planning on getting out of town for an actual vacation further north. I reckon that I will have to bring my laptop with, which should not be an issue.

More later.

Writing statistics for the week ending 2 July 2022:
+2,744 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.
June 2022 statistics:
Words: 19,163
Revise/Plan: 240 min.
Daily Writing Goals Met: 66%

Recap: First Half of 2022:

[PHOTO NOTE: Get it? Because it’s in halves… anyway.]

And just when I think that I have been doing horribly, I find that I actually have been productive writing this past six months.

For those not in the know, I have been keeping track of all the stuff I’ve been writing, all of the words whether fiction or nonfiction, on this blog, for the past five years. (I’ve been doing it longer than that, but the early notekeeping was for me.) For the past four years, I have been keeping records in the present format. It’s more than a little bit of data.

This year, I decided to actually set a goal for the entire year rather than just try to make daily goals. Based on what I had done over the past four years, I decided to try 200,000 words written for 2022 and meeting my daily writing quota (500 words per day or 30 minutes of planning and/or revisions) at least 70 percent of the time.

How am I doing so far?

Obviously, at this point in the year I should be at 100,000 words written and meeting my daily writing goals 70 percent of the time. Time to open the envelope and see what there is to see. (Reminder: all revise/planning numbers represent total number of minutes.):

Writing statistics: First half of 2022:

  • Jan:
    • Words: 13,954
    • Revise/Plan: 165
    • Daily Writing Goals Met: 68%
  • Feb:
    • Words: 16,770
    • Revise/Plan: 90
    • Daily Writing Goals Met: 86%
  • Mar:
    • Words: 27, 101
    • Revise/Plan: 375
    • Daily Writing Goals Met: 86%
  • Apr:
    • Words: 20,791
    • Revise/Plan: 225
    • Daily Writing Goals Met: 86%
  • May:
    • Words: 12,563
    • Revise/Plan: 255
    • Daily Writing Goals Met: 54%
  • Jun:
    • Words: 19,163
    • Revise/Plan: 240
    • Daily Writing Goals Met: 66%
  • 1st part of the year:
    • Words (total): 110,342
    • Words (avg.): 18,390
    • Revise/Plan (total): 1,350
    • Revise/Plan (avg.): 225
    • Daily Writing Goals Met (avg.): 74%

So, I am 10,000 words ahead of schedule and above my percentage of daily writing goals met… by a good margin, if not a comfortable one. However, it is much better than the same stats for the first year of 2021:

  • 1st half of 2021:
    • Words (total): 86,852
    • Words (avg.) 14,475
    • Revise/Plan (total): 1290
    • Revise/Plan (avg.) 215
    • Daily Writing Goals Met (avg.): 57 percent

So, I’m ahead of last year in all statistical categories. That’s a great feeling.

I am definitely not going to get overconfident with making my goals this year. But I am cautiously optimistic. My current yearly word record is 208,919 set in 2020, and my current yearly record of daily writing goals met is 78 percent set in 2019. Could I possibly make those goals? Maybe, but for now I am going to take the win and start writing some other stuff. I’ve been doing too many journal posts and not enough other stuff.

Take care, everyone, and for any Americans reading this – have as good of a Fourth of July as you can.