Last Updated on: 3rd March 2020, 03:38 pm
Well, I had a good run while it lasted. I managed to write almost every day for more than half a year. No matter how you look at it, that’s a major accomplishment, especially compared to every other time I’ve tried to write every day.
I started missing days in the middle of the summer – first because we went on vacation, and then later for less compelling reasons – but I didn’t completely blow it until November.
First, however, I spent most of October working on a script. It was hard work, and I wrote a lot of pages in a fairly short amount of time. I delivered my draft at the end of the month, but I haven’t gone back to it since.
I fully intended to keep working on the script, but I lost momentum and haven’t quite managed to get it back yet. The election was a big part of the problem. After the results came in, it was hard to focus on anything but the unrelenting horror, and I didn’t really feel like trying to write for a good long time.
In the end, I only wrote a handful of days in November. The most substantial thing I wrote was a book review. Before long, I decided that my writing goal was done for the year and I didn’t really try too hard to get back into it.
That said, I am hoping I can finish a rewrite of my script before the end of the year along with drafts of two more scripts. I’d like to get that work off my plate so that I can start fresh next year.
I also still have my short story knocking around. Somehow I spent most of the year working on that damn story. I submitted it three times since I last posted – twice in August, and once in October – and the last place offered feedback, which was crucial. Unfortunately, addressing their notes will require gutting and re-working the whole thing yet another time.
I definitely don’t want to abandon it after all of that work, but it’s starting to feel like a bit of an albatross. I want to feel like it’s finished so that I can move on to something new, but I don’t want to re-submit without addressing that feedback. I think for now I’m going to let it lay fallow until I finish those scripts.
As for next year, I’ve decided to track journaling separately from other non-fiction. I want to get a better idea of how many days I used the “escape hatch” instead of working on something more substantial.
I’m definitely going to rededicate myself to my goal, however. I think it was really positive in a lot of ways, even if it was occasionally frustrating or demoralizing. Maybe next year I can break this year’s record.
For now, I’m going to do what I can to be productive before the holidays, but I’m not going to beat myself up if I don’t finish my projects in the time I have left this year.
Final counts for August 2016:
- 6 hours of related work
- 0 script pages
- 2450 words of fiction
- 4421 words of non-fiction
- 6871 total words
Final counts for September 2016:
- 7.5 hours of related work
- 0 script pages
- 0 words of fiction
- 3334 words of non-fiction
- 3334 total words
Final counts for October 2016:
- 0.5 hours of related work
- 52 script pages
- 0 words of fiction
- 1853 words of non-fiction
- 1853 total words
Final counts for November 2016:
- 1 hour of related work
- 0 script pages
- 300 words of fiction
- 1300 words of non-fiction
- 1600 total words