It is currently my goal to build up a small back log of short stories, to give myself 2-3 months of breathing room where I will instead be working on a novel. For the coming month, though, I will be releasing "Cheating in the Caribbean," a short Futa/F story, predictably about cheating. In this case, about cheating on a woman's boyfriend while on vacation on a Caribbean island. I'll also be releasing an as of yet untitled M/F work about a female assassin and the man she meets on a job later in the month.
I've also decided that instead of having these reports in the middle of each month, I'm going to be extending the next "monthly" report's time-period so that I can publish it closer to the 1st September rather than somewhere around the 16th of August. But to get to the point of this post, what has happened in the month that passed?
Monthly Words
My goal for this month continued to be 1000 words a day. I have written a total of around 18.000 words, coming to roughly 592 words/day. I will continue to keep my word count goal at 1000 for one more month, before moving up to 1250/day.
Now, the words per day figure will be conflicting with what I'll talk about below, but I'll describe what happened briefly. In the first part of the month, everything was going swimmingly. I wrote tons, and felt good about writing and life, and found a good schedule for writing when I don't have anything else going on.
Then construction workers, family stuff and holidays happened. In terms of written words, this month has been a disaster. Still, I learned many valuable things both from doing (Writing) and from reading blogs. I got back into the groove a bit at the end as well, so I believe I can bounce back for the next report and get ready to move on to 1250 words/day. I already write far more than that on the days where I write. It's the interruptions that cost me.
What I Have Learned
I suppose it's not a new revelation to me that I am a private/introvert and often anxious creature. With workers and a torrent of family obligations during most of one week of this month, I had serious trouble finding myself in a place where I felt like writing at all. I pushed myself to write anyway, and I discovered that what I wrote in such an uneven state of mind is not bad work.
The unequivocally most important part of this past month, though, was my decision to attempt to stick to a schedule of early-day/morning writing on the days where I do write. This way, I will usually have my 1000 words for the day done way before noon, giving me the rest of the day to do whatever I want. I have scheduled at least 1 hour of reading as well. What this has done is almost magical, for me. It has given me my passion for writing back. With the day's goal accomplished early, I managed to write far more in a given day than before. I was restless to write more, and more, and more.
Writers block is another thing I have worked on. I never really considered what I had writers block as much as a lack of motivation, but I have changed that view lately. It boils down to me, in the past, more often than not spending half or whole days thinking that I should get at least my 1000 words out of the way. I think so much about it, but I rarely tab into word for more than 2 seconds. My mind becomes negative about the whole thing.
I didn't sit down and force myself to focus on the page and the words that should flow onto it. This is something I have learned to change. The words are there, even if I don't feel in that magical state of mind that I previously thought necessary. The words will flow, as long as I sit down and focus. Once I get back to studying and working, this will be important, since my writing time will be greatly diminished.
Stories Written and Publishing Notes
Cheating in the Caribbean - To be published.
Assassin story (Part 1) - To be published
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