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Craft

January by the Numbers

Last Updated on: 5th March 2020, 05:30 pm

Writing in January went pretty well overall. I started by writing a little bit of fiction every day and I eventually pulled off a streak that lasted through the end of the month.

Right near the end I decided that I needed to figure out a way to count working on an outline, because I spent that last Friday and Saturday getting ready for my screenwriting class and all of my energies were devoted to my outline instead of writing or rewriting.

I updated my spreadsheet so that I could count the hours I spent in class or working on my outline. Problem is, it feels a bit like cheating even though it’s a pretty important part of the process.

Unfortunately, I think I lost a bit of momentum after two days of not adding new words or pages to my counts. I’m sure it’s just a mental hang-up, but I think if I do devote more days to nothing but outlining, it would help me feel better if I also did something like writing a journal entry so that I have some writing progress to count.

Also, I think if I go too many days without taking at crack at writing fiction, I get too much in my head about it and I tend to write a blog post or a journal entry as an avoidance tactic.

And, of course, I have work that I need to do for class. I need to read a script so that I can give feedback, and I need to make some measurable progress on my outline.

When I took screenwriting classes in Austin, I never produced anything. I don’t want to repeat that mistake.

My final counts for January 2016 were:

  • 6 hours of related work
  • 4 script pages
  • 5136 words of fiction
  • 7601 words of non-fiction
  • 12737 total words

Here’s to a solid February full of writing!