Month #6 Summary of this Writing in Public challenge.

January 2014

Made it through Month #6. Actually, I think you could safely say I limped through Month #6 and got to the end of it. I also had ten zero-word days, most because of travel. So only 21 days of writing and most of that was limping due to a ton of other stuff and getting my sleep schedule badly out of whack.

Of the six months of this challenge, January was the worst month in the fiction writing. After a bad December and a bad November. I’m just distracted and having far too much fun and learning on other things.

Also, I had a lot of traveling time. I initially thought I would write while traveling, but after the aborted start to the drive, I decided to try that again at some point in the future.

I have the monthly word counts below.

And as I have said every month, even though I knew I was going to give a general summary of the day here every day, it changed my behavior not at all. So I want to repeat that one more time. Not at all. For some reason I wish it did. I wish it drove me to the writing computer more often, but alas I just never think of it because of this daily update.

However, getting the words and the stories for Smith’s Monthly every month has altered my focus. A LOT!! And that’s going to drive me a lot over the next two months. I still have some reserves in stories and I am still a month ahead pretty much in content, so I have a little room. But I’d like to get even farther ahead, so I might have to try one of those ten day novels again at some point this spring like I did last spring. That should help. (grin)

And as with last month, I was very much aware that the stuff I do outside of writing, from the publishing, to the workshops, to sitting in meetings, to working on collectables and formatting Smith’s Monthly and other things. All that takes up about 50-60 hours per week on average and January was no different. A little more right around the first of each month.

The travel this month caused me to cram more of the normal work stuff into the days ahead and the days after I got back. So that hurt the writing as well.

So in other words, as I said before, (and will say again right here…) I have a full time day job. Now granted, I love everything about my “day” job and it mostly focuses around writing, but it isn’t time writing new words. That amount of time spent on the “day” job sort of surprised me a little, to be honest, even more this sixth month than it did the first five because, for some reason, there seemed to be just more of it. Not a clue why.

I only reported new words on everything.

A side point someone pointed out a couple months ago and I want to repeat. My responses to questions on my blogs and to questions in the workshop web sites I don’t count. I might count them for one month at some point this spring just to see the amount of words involved over a year.

I completed the novel Kill Game (formally called Kill Button), did an issue of Smith’s Monthly, and finished three new short stories as well this month.

I had a total new words written of 66,200 words, of which 34,150 words of that was new fiction. (See all the totals below.)

Look at the first six months of this challenge…  For word totals see below…

Looks like I will easily hit well over a million words total this year of original words. But I need to pick up a good 120,000 words to be on pace for hitting a million words of fiction this year, something I want to try to do.

Hmmm… maybe recording this for the first time will help me get to the writing computer a little more. I need to do just a little over 100,000 words of fiction per month for the next six months to hit that million word mark.

Time to pick up the speed a little it seems. (grin)

New Month

For February, just as I did with the six months before, I’m going to start the counting over. And the project list of completed projects for the month over as well. Up under the Writing in Public tab at the top I will put the completed projects per month and links to the first and last posts of the month and to this summary post, so anyone can go back and look.

If you have the time, the comments on a bunch of the posts have been great questions and worth the read. Thanks everyone, for the great comments and questions.

And each monthly summary post I’ll update the full year’s projects on that post as well.

Stay tuned.  Here we go with month seven. (Yeah, believe it or not, I’m still going. (grin))

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Monthly Totals

Fiction:
August: 78,900 words
September: 81,200 words
October: 86,200 words
November: 56,800 words
December: 52,000 words
January: 34,150 words

Nonfiction: 
August: 1,000 words
September: 2,900 words
October: 2,000 words
November: 1,950 words
December: 1,700 words
January: 1,400 words

Blog Posts: 
August: 21,300 words
September: 16,600 words
October: 15,150 words
November: 12,550 words
December: 17,300 words
January: 11,450 words

E-mail:
August: 809 e-mails. Approx. 23,050 words
September: 861 e-mails. Approx. 24,600 words
October: 647 e-mails. Approx. 24,450 words
November: 622 e-mails. Approx. 24,250 words
December: 621 e-mails. Approx. 29,700 words
January: 802 e-mails. Approx. 19,200 words

TOTAL NEW WORDS

AUGUST… 124,250 Words

SEPTEMBER… 125,300 Words

OCTOBER… 127,800 Words

NOVEMBER… 95,550 Words

DECEMBER… 100,700 Words

JANUARY… 66,200 Words

 

TOTAL FOR SIX MONTHS….. 639, 800 Total Words

Total Fiction…. 389,250

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Stories and Projects Finished in January, 2014

In order of production with the most recent at the top.

And Where and When You Will Be Able to Find Them

—Finished the short story “You Forgive the Night’s Scream: A Poker Boy story.” It will appear in Smith’s Monthly #6 in March. About 3,400 words.

—Finished the short story “Remember me to Your Children.” It will appear in Smith’s Monthly #6 in March. About 3,300 words.

—Finished the short story “A Desert Shot: A Poker Boy story.” It will appear in Fiction River: Fantastic Detectives. About 3,000 words.

—Finished the novel Kill Button: A Cold Poker Gang Novel. It will appear in Smith’s Monthly #6 in March and then in a stand-alone novel in May, 2014. About 51,000 words.

—Turned in full manuscript for Smith’s Monthly #5. About 90,000 words. It will appear in February 2014.

—Wrote my introduction to Smith’s Monthly #5. It will appear in February.