Writing in Public, Too: First Month Recap

A little belated, but life happens. And it did this past week, to a significant level. I hadn\’t written any new fiction since the 26th, which makes it…nine days? A long time. But I\’m starting to get back in motion again, now. To make a long story short, I tend to do better dealing with depressing events when I am able to take action – to move ahead in some way. Turning my writing into a successful income will fix an awful lot of the problems I\’ve been facing, so that means any time I can commit to writing IS in fact taking direct forward action.
So I\’m working to move ahead on the writing. And I\’ll be doing another month of the \”Writing in Public, Too\” series, if one which is off to a belated start.

So what happened in September?

– I wrote just under 35,000 words of new fiction.

– I wrote about 15,000 words of blog posts.

In all, it was about a NaNoWriMo worth of writing. Not quite the 60k I\’d been hoping for, but then I missed the last four days of the month. I\’d really been planning to work hard to make those last three days productive ones. Still, nothing to sneeze at, writing 34,650 words of new fiction. I have Starship about ready to, er, ship. I\’ve started on Episode 6. I finished writing \”Ashes Ascendant\”, and it\’s off to edits now, so folks who\’ve been waiting for the next Ryan Blackwell stories will have something new to read before the end of the year.

I found the accountability useful. It was nice to hear from people, from time to time – here, on Twitter, and on Facebook. That really helped, by reminding me that YES, some folks were reading this. I even had a few people tell me that my blogging about the process helped inspire them to get back to writing. That\’s an awesome thing.

My focus on writing has borne other fruit, too. Daughter D (age 7) – who a month ago said she hated writing – has begun writing her first book. And she LIKES writing, now. At some point this month, I need to write the next bit of my Skylark homage for her, and have her read it. I have the next bit plotted out… Will be fun to make that story into something in the mid-grade/YA range.

One thing which will be changing this month or next… I have some pen name stuff I will be writing, coming up. So there will be some wordcount this time that\’s not associated with a Kevin McLaughlin story. You\’ll have to take my word for the wordcount. I promise I won\’t fib on it! This particular piece is going to be obligate pen-name work, however, so I can talk about how the story is going and developing, but not specifics about it.

Sorry! I promise to get either some Starship or some Blackwell in there, too.

The month is already six days gone… Twenty five remain. I\’m going to try to hold to the 60k again, and see if I can actually get there this time. I\’m starting off behind, but I also have a month of writing habit behind me (if a little broken by the pause).

OK. This stuff isn\’t going to write itself. Time to get to work.

Thanks for coming along on the trip!

Month One Totals:

Month One Fiction: 34650 words

Month One Blog Posts: 14834 words

Total Month One Words: 49,484