As we near the end of July it occurred to me I wrote in my first blog my goal was to complete my rough first draft by the end of the month. Wow was I being optimistic! Fair to say that goal was pretty naive of me as the first thing I did in July is leave town for a week followed quickly by any number of other things which have added to my excuse list for not writing. Yard needs mowed again, clean the garage, lots going on at my day job, and so on and so on.
Even with all the things trying to fill my schedule for me and keep me from writing, I’ve maintained my attitude of making the most of my time when I do get the time. Through this attitude I’ve written 10,000 words so far this month which may not be much to some but to me it’s a tremendous achievement!
You see for past 15-16 years when I say I’m finally going to write one of my novel ideas I sit and punch out maybe 1,500-2,500 words before I either switch projects, allow life to get in the way, or just burn out completely. Even the story I’m on right now was sitting at a count of 1,478 mostly random words of story ideas and a halfhearted beginning since back in 2010! Those words have been re-written to make sense and I’ve plodded on since finding new aspects of the story I never saw coming as it pours out of me.
Needless to say if I hope to finish the novel this year I’ll need to step it up a little more. I have a daily goal of 500-1,000 words even though I know I’ll most likely NOT get to write everyday. With that in mind I think I’ll conservatively set my new goal of having a better-than-rough-slightly-polished rough draft done by the end of October. That will hopefully give me time for additional polishing and re-writes to still be done before the end of the year. I’m counting on you to keep me accountable for this!
Until next time!
Jason
Jason A. Meuschke 