Hello again everyone,
We’re another month down into the year and another few thousand words have been jotted down.
Reading wise it’s been a bit of a slow one for me, although I did finish The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay and did a re-read (listen) of The Yorkshire Shepherdess by Amanda Owen which is a really lovely book and I highly recommend. Of course, true to Guy Gavriel Kay’s reputation, The Summer Tree wrenched my soul and stabbed me right in the heart. Also recommended! I’m still behind on my Goodreads schedule but I’ve got a few books on the go at the moment so I am sure I’ll catch up soon!
As I finished drafting The King with Splintered Eyes in January this month (February) has been entirely devoted to writing out the phase plan for Windborn (working title) so that means blue stickers on the calendar!
In terms of total words February came in at just over 28,000 so I managed to keep my average words per day over 1,000, but that slowed down towards the end of the month as I finished the phase plan and I want to let it mull/do some character building before I get into the prose proper.
Here’s the calendar for February:
It’s a bit spotty compared to January with a few more gaps here and there (which March looks to be the same as well) but I’m pleased that I still managed to keep the writing average at at least 1,000 words a day. I’ve already had a few zero days in March but I’m hoping to do some epic sessions towards the end of the month to make sure I keep it over 1,000 again. We’ll see how that goes.
One thing that I did notice as it got to the end of the month was that trying to get the words out writing started to feel forced which is something I noticed as well with the first draft of Windborn which just made the whole thing feel flat. To try and rectify this I may change the sticker system and award a sticker once I’ve spent a certain amount of time (maybe half an hour) on a writing task. That way I can keep the sticker reward when I need to do some editing (I have a novelette in sore need of a final run through) and keep the chain going.
The plan for March is to have about 25,000 words of the first draft of Windborn out of the way and some background writing that might or might not make it into the book (I’ve a few myths and legends that I’m writing to help give the world flavour). I’ll also give a quick update on ‘phase planning’ as this is the second story that I’ve done like this and I promised an update the first time I talked about it.
Otherwise, I hope you’re all well and your writing journeys are going great!
Happy writing!