Small Wins -45K words

This last week was a bit hard because I ended up sick for a few days and then had a sore neck for a few more. I ended up only getting a few thousand words done but I am nearly ready to start working on the second half of the novel.

I have found that I need to take two days off from writing a week in order to keep from burning out. Writing a novel is a marathon and not a sprint and making sure to rest and keep pace are important.

I am glad that I am writing while the days are cold and dark because it keeps me motivated during this hard time of the year. I have set my goal of finishing the rough draft for the start of Spring – that way I can use the growing daylight energy to fuel the part of the job I have never done before – editing and getting the first draft ready to be talked about.

I don’t even have a hook statement yet because I keep learning new things about my characters and adding new plot elements in as I write. It’s been a lot of fun just working on it and seeing where it goes.

All the while, I have been keeping up with my reading goal of 52 books in a year. I am currently reading Onyx Storm and loving it. I am trying not to look at any spoilers online but I suspect the ending is another cliff hanger.

My own story is building out to be more of a trilogy of stories – each one following a different set of characters on a different part of the over arching story line.

I am more motivated than ever to finish the whole process of writing than I have ever been before. As my job because more and more unnecessary and my work load becomes less and less, the need to find something that calls to me becomes more and more important. I have even contemplated dropping my hours at my job in order to allow me more time to concentrate on writing but I also know that I need to pay my bills. However, having such limited time to write helps to make it important that I do not allow distractions to occur when I need to write.

It a balancing act and one that I am doing my very best not to fail.