Whelp, it’s been a bit, hasn’t it?
In all honesty, I’ve procrastinated about writing this post, or something like it, for the past several weeks. I always sort of understood why some of my students would rather repeat a grade rather than do an assignment they’d prefer not to do, but this past month or so has been an illustration of how it would actually work (lol).
I once had bold, gold aspirations to massive word counts for 2026. I had hoped to make it to 230,000 words this year and make my daily minimum writing quota (see below if you are not familiar with it) at least 85 percent of the time. Based on what I had written over the past couple of years, those goals appeared to be attainable.
Over the past eight weeks, however, my productivity has collapsed.
While I realize pure word count is not indicative, necessarily, of progress in your writing. And this year, I’ve come to the conclusion that completing one work in progress (WIP) has become the massive priority it has. I want to make sure this book gets finished, because in the personal inventory I’ve been doing on myself, I think it’s the key to where my head is at right now.
At this point, I’ve gotten so behind on writing new work it’s not funny. In all honesty, I think instead of putting all of those numbers up here, I will instead list my monthly totals for May and June 2026, as well a full stat recap for the first part of the year. I think these numbers should show the tale:
Writing statistics, May 2026:
Words: 11,363
Revising or planning:1,260 minutes.
Daily Writing Goals Met: 69 percent.
Writing statistics, June 2026:
Words: 2,431
Revising or planning:1,445 minutes.
Daily Writing Goals Met: 87 percent.
Writing Statistics, first half of 2026:
Words (total): 86,542
Words (avg.): 14,424
Revise/Plan (total): 3,335 min.
Revise/Plan (avg.): 556 min.
DWGM (avg.): 76%
Yes, absolutely horrific statistics for me considering the past several years of my work. How to explain this?
- My main focus right now is a work in progress (WIP) I started on Halloween last year, a sci-fi environmental horror project set in a little Mississippi River town in Iowa, known as Shadows on the Mississippi.
In the process of writing the book, I came to the realization that I have devoted far too much time to worldbuilding and minutiae and not enough on a propulsive story that might attract people.
For the past several weeks, I have been performing major surgery on SOTM. I cut the first 57 pages down to a lean and mean 50-page, three-chapter opener I’m feeling much better about before. And I am now in the process of finishing up two things I think the rough draft (or SOTM 1.5, perhaps) require – a plausible threat that I won’t have to get into a massive amount of sci-fi research to pull off, and then taking a close look at the pacing of the book. If I want this to be a good horror, it needs to have good tension and pace. - World Cup 2026. Obviously, this has distracted me. I have to watch from home because I’m not going to take out a loan to get one World Cup ticket and have to travel all the way over to the West Coast to watch the US Men’s National Team play (I don’t have too much interest in seeing the other teams live). I’ve been privileged to already watch the USMNT play in person before, so that’s already off my bucket list. I’m definitely distracted, especially with the US about to play Belgium this coming Monday.
- Some personal realizations about my writing in general are leading me to question not only how I put together my work, but how I deal with people generally. I should keep vague on this until I have some clarity on this, but rest assured I am not in danger or in any particular harm. In some ways, I have to learn how to write again, or concentrate on what I need to concentrate on.
Well, that’s about all I want to get into for now. This is the closest I’ve come to writing an Iowan Stephen King story. If I give it the attention it deserves, I won’t. I can’t wait to share it with you.
Have a good week everyone, and all you writers keep writing. Hopefully I show up next week as I normally schedule.
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