All I can say regarding what had to be the best week of writing I’ve had in 2024 is it was a mix of events this week. The fact I’m more or less stuck in a hotel room for a good portion of the next few months has something of an influence on my productivity. With not too much to distract me, I’ve managed to get a variety of writing done. It reminds me of how a publisher locked one of my literary idols Douglas Adams in a hotel room to force him to write the next book in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. (Whenever something gets published in one forum or another, I’ll let you, my audience, know.)
Here’s the stats:
Writing statistics for the week ending 24 February 2024: 7,567 words written. Days writing: 7 of 7. Days revising/planning: 1 of 7 for 90 total minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 7 of 7 days.
One good week does not a year make. I need to string more than a few of those together before I can even begin to hint 2024 is a success to me.
The turnaround continues. 😊 See you next week.
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
Last week was the end of my moving from Chariton and the beginning of a few months on the road, so to speak.
Laura and I closed on the house Friday and had all of our belongings out of the old place by the morning. Thank goodness we had some great movers or we would have been unable to move any of our limbs by midday. But, everything went as expected and we’re able to move forward.
However, now the move’s gone through and I’m hoping I’ll be able to devote some more time to writing now. I have my own little study set up at our apartment, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how well the setup is working1. Also, I’ll be on my own in hotels during the week, so I’ll be interested in seeing how this more isolated existence helps or hurts (I think it will help) my productivity. Goodness knows I need it2.
Here’s the stats:
Writing statistics for the week ending 10 February 2024: 2,138 words written. Days writing: 3 of 7. Days revising/planning: 2 of 7 for 90 total minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 4 of 7 days.
The fact I made it over 2,000 words for the week is a bit of a minor miracle. I know I’m going to write more this coming week.
The turnaround is starting for me, I can feel it. See you next week.
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
Laura (my wife) said I have a lot of personal space in the apartment, but it also has the advantage of keeping me out of her hair when she wants to relax in the living room or get things done in other places. ↩︎
If not this weekend, I think by next weekend I’ll have a feel for how hotel life is affecting my writing and report back on that. Since the next newsletter is coming out this weekend, it might end up becoming its own post. ↩︎
This might be the last blog post I write in my home for the past four years, Chariton, Iowa. Within the next few days, we will be moved out of our home and (more or less) fully into our new home of Fort Madison, Iowa, right next to the river that seems to be a focus of my life.
Naturally, writing has been on the back-burner for me. To be honest, I barely was able to concentrate on it this past week. I am hoping it will be the worst week from a writing productivity standpoint for me for the rest of this year.
I’ve previously tried to describe the experience of teaching (even in a good learning environment) and how it affects you mentally. The best description I can come up with currently is attempting to complete a triathlon with your brain. It’s an all consuming effort when you are in the midst of the experience, and when you mix in trying to get everything packed up from your home, it is frankly a lot to take in. I might be able to think a bit about the stories I’m interested in telling, do some planning and outlining of those stories, but actually telling them is something else entirely.
I’m not necessarily hopeful I will see a turnaround this week. However, when next week comes around and I will be alternating between Fort Madison and “in the wind, so to speak,” in the words of the fantastic character Omar Little in The Wire. It may be a bit simpler for me to write in some anonymous hotel room where I don’t have to worry about what to pack up for storage and what to take care of in my home. My father did a considerable amount of traveling as a consultant engineer for about 40 years before his retirement, both around and outside the United States. I might have to get some tips from him about properly handling hotel living.
Enough stalling; here’s the stats.
Writing statistics for the week ending 3 February 2024: 862 words written. Days writing: 2 of 7. Days revising/planning: 5 of 7 for 270 total minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 6 of 7 days.
Writing statistics for January 2024: Words: 10,769 Revise/Plan: 1,440 minutes Daily Writing Goals Met: 86%
Honestly, I’m surprised I exceeded 10,000 words for this month. I need to be closer to 16,667 per month to make it to at least 200,000 for the year. At least I have some decent numbers for planning and revising, and at least am meeting my daily goals that way.
However, that’s not enough for me. I want to get back to where I was. I might not get on that pace in the next couple of months, but I can get there. I have the stats and the numbers to prove it. And I’ve got a lot to write about.
Better luck next week.
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
I won’t say I’m totally out of sorts, but for the past few days and maybe weeks I’ve been… sort of drifting along, Mostly it’s been due to the transition I’ve been going through personally and the uncertainty it has brought along. I know I will be leaving to make a new life somewhere soon, but exactly what the process will be like and timetables have been hazy at best. It’s only been recently some of these uncertainties have become more certain.
Of course, this has affected my equilibrium… and my writing productivity and consistency, as well. I’ll talk about it, as I write this in my “Eagle’s Nest” in Chariton for the last time.
The Home Front
I feel like I’ll be living out of a tent during the next few months.
This week, in the group text I have with my wife and our two kids, Laura (my wife) said I’ll know what it’s like to be a business traveler this next few months. My daughter, Maddie, called me the itinerant teacher. Sounds about right. 😂
So, this is the situation so far. It appears we have a buyer for the house, and we should close on the house by next Friday. We’ll need to have all of our belongings packed up from the house by then. To be fair, this is a far better situation than it to be July and we have still not sold an empty house. That would be an uncomfortable situation, surely, because we’d have no interest in being absent landlords by any means.
Afterwards, Laura and I will both be officially Fort Madison residents, although I will be hanging out in an area hotel for the middle part of the week while I continue to work for my current district, Twin Cedars of Bussey, Iowa. It may be something of a nomadic life, but it would still cost us less than if we still had the house and the apartment and were paying for than and sundry other family costs.
What I’ve Been Writing
I should have realized this move and all the activity behind it were going to take away from my writing. Not that I haven’t had time, but much of the past couple of days has involved packing away items and getting this place ready to be handed over.
Other than this newsletter and a few odds and ends of writing, I really haven’t done much writing for any of my projects. If trying to write in the middle of a school year at times feels like writing after you’ve been spun around on a merry-go-round and taken the SAT, trying to do this and move from your house at the same time is like doing everything I just mentioned while on painkillers.
Not to talk about writing statistics in great detail here, but I’m likely to be off pace from trying to reach 200,000 words by the end of this year, and feeling behind pace is not a good feeling for me. However, I’m only one month into the year, and I think I have more of an opportunity to pick up my productivity.
Once I get out of the old house and find some temporary quarters, I think things will pick up for me. I’ll only have to worry about working, getting back to where I’m sleeping, and write. We’ll have to see how the life of a nomad writer will be. Considering how often my father traveled through the United States and overseas for his career as a consulting engineer, I need to get some feedback from him about how to deal with being on the road1.
What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing
When I have a free moment, I will have to check my schedule and see what writing events and book fairs are coming up. The book fair “season” really hasn’t started yet, but I do want to try and make it out to some of them I got to last year. I hope I can still make it to the Des Moines area events even though I will be living for all intents and purposes in Fort Madison.
One of my writing friends from the Des Moines area, Amara Clay, gave me some good ideas and tips on public appearances and presentations I want to put into practice the next time I head out to promote my books.
Writing Quote(s) of the Week
Let’s hear it from Jorge this week.
A writer – and, I believe, generally all persons – must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art. ― Jorge Luis Borges, Twenty-Four Conversations with Borges: Interviews by Roberto Alifano 1981-1983
Where You Can Find My Books
For direct links to purchase my books in paperback and ebook form, including The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning and The Holy Fool, click on the links in the Substack sidebar or the links on my Substack author page. Or, you can go to this page on my WordPress site, Liegois Media.
You can also get them in person at these fine Iowa bookstores:
Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave # S1, Des Moines
Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
The Book Vault, 105 S Market St, Oskaloosa.
All these are great independent bookstores, but I’m always looking for some new places to place my books (especially now in eastern Iowa), so feel free to hit me up in the comments if anyone has a suggestion.
Final Thoughts
That’s about all I have for this week.
This coming week is going to be a crazy sprint to get moved out, so I’m hoping I publish on time on the weekend, but there’s a chance I might not. Hopefully, normal service can be returned in a couple weeks.
-30-
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
I know I promised you some original writing, maybe even fiction, this weekend. Let me assure you it is coming – at 5 p.m. Central Time today. However, I wanted to take a moment now and let everyone know about some personal news.
It turns out I’m soon to be on the move, and both my wife and I will be returning to more familiar territory and a very familiar river.
My wife Laura has just accepted a new job as a city manager for Fort Madison, Iowa. It’s two hours away from where I’m living in Chariton, Iowa, right in south central Iowa. It will be much closer to our hometown of Muscatine, Iowa, where my parents, her mother, and eventually my daughter will be living. It’s a great opportunity for her, and I couldn’t be prouder.
As for me, I’ll be joining her after the school year’s over and seeing what opportunities present themselves. I will miss my school district, as it was a good one (Twin Cedars) and I have been having a good year working with a great group of colleagues. However, Laura’s been my home for 25-plus years, so I go where she does.
I do plan to keep in touch with those I’ve made friends and acquaintances with in Chariton and the area, especially some of my work colleagues and area writers I’ve had a chance to meet here during the past three years. However, I’m hoping to reconnect with some of my old friends and writing enthusiasts from the Muscatine/Quad Cities area, as well as any new ones from around the Fort Madison/Burlington area.
My current home.
Chariton will always be a part of my life, I believe. It will be the place where I finished my second book, started a few other projects, and started writing on Substack. It is likely going to be the last home me, Laura, and our two children ever live in again after a brief period when my son came to stay with us and work in Chariton and my daughter was attending the University of Iowa from her laptop.
Downtown Chariton, Iowa
However, I’m going to be closer to more of my family, and closer to the Mississippi River, where I’ve lived next to more than forty years. The older I’ve gotten, the more I have been fascinated by rivers in general and the Mississippi in particular, and visitors to this page might have seen a poem or two inspired by river life. When I had the chance to tour Fort Madison recently and watched the sun dancing off the surface of the waters, the sight felt so much like home to me I could barely shake it.
The Fort Madison, Iowa riverfront.
I can’t wait to get started on the new adventure. I’ll probably tell you a bit about it here, too.
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
So, after letting you know what was going on almost a year ago, the move’s finally happened.
I officially transferred the flag, so to speak, to the new home in South Central Iowa about three days ago. It’s all still a new experience to me. I like the new home, even though getting to the master bedroom is a bit of a climb. I do appreciate that it’s smaller and more easily maintainable than the place I lived in for 13 years.
This year is easily going to be the biggest “transition” year of my life for some time. I have one child living and working on his own and the other is preparing to head to college soon (what that will look like is soon to be determined). I am several weeks away from starting a new teaching assignment, though what that will look like is still up in the air, being new to the district and with the current pandemic.
Naturally, with emptying out the old place and cleaning it, and filling the new place and cleaning it, it took a toll on my writing time, especially this past week in the midst of the move. As always, I’ll post the weekly total (in this case, the two-week total) at the end.
Getting your writing environment right is a discussion within itself. I realize now after the fact that I had nailed down my old writing space where I’d spent many a night writing what turned out to be the majority of my written work. Now I am in the process of creating something that will meet my needs. How well I do that and how fast of a process it will take is, again, something yet to be determined.
The good news is that the move has been quite inspirational for me as far as blogging goes. For anyone that just started following this blog, I needed to give a bit of explanation. For as much as my memory can fade or be filled with other items, I never thought that I would be one of those ones who would ever be interested in doing a memoir. To be honest, my own life doesn’t really have the kind of excitement that would attract many readers.
Over the course of this blog, however, I ended up creating a Writer’s Biography of tales, essentially talking about things in my life that had to do with my life and evolution as a writer. In looking back at that collection of stories, however, it appears I have not written a new one in nearly a year. As of right now, this move seems to have inspired no less than three new posts, one for each of the volumes in the collection. (Volume I stories cover topics that had to do with or began during my childhood; Volume II stories cover topics of when I was a young adult, and Volume III stories are about what has happened roughly since I began rededicating myself to writing.)
So, you’ll see that, and likely another link to a video review of the next section of Lord of the Rings that I’ve read. I’m hoping to get all of it down by the time school starts up again.
Also, apparently, I passed the 300-post mark sometime during the past few weeks. Three years and 300 posts, both good numbers.
Anyway, here’s my joke of writing stats for the past two weeks. Enjoy and stay safe.
Week of July 12: +6,859 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): 5 of 7 days.
Week of July 19: +153 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.
