December Plan Update (Part 3)

Wow. It's amazing how absolutely useless I become when I hit vacation mode.

It turned out, I had a project that lasted until halfway through Wednesday last week at work, so I spent the remainder of the day chilling and messing around. And then I was in full-swing holiday mode. Stockings on Wednesday night; presents, baking, and going out to eat on Thursday; chores and errands on Friday; not getting dressed until 2pm, and then some Yule stuff on Saturday; shoveling snow and grocery shopping and Christmas Eve movies while drinking Bailey's on Sunday; and Christmas Day was filled with cooking and eating and more Christmas movies.

Today I stared down my to-do list and managed to get two things accomplished. One of those was not writing. Oh, and more snow shoveling.

That being said, I did get two scenes of about a thousand words written on Scions of Mythos during all of that. It's not nearly as much as I had hoped to get done in the last week, but they were good scenes. I've also spent a lot of time thinking about the book and living in the Mythos world. so while there's minimal forward motion on the actual story, I'm comfortably settled in the setting so that I'm ready to write when I finally sit down to it.

I sent off book two to my brother and sister yesterday for Christmas. I did not end up doing the last tweak I had planned. Every time I sat down to do it, I was equal parts overwhelmed by the task and apathetic about the importance of it. I've decided, ultimately, that it might be a nice setting thing to add at a later date, but that it won't have any impact on the story. At best, it's a way to mark the passage of time in the book. At the least, it's another way to make the book more unmistakably Lawrence, and to add some more character development to a few of the Hunters. Neither of which seemed pressing enough to try to cram in when I had plenty of other things to keep myself occupied before Christmas.

I now have two more days of vacation at home before I head to see the family for New Years. I'm hoping to poke at my book at least a little. A few thousand words would be great.

I wanted to be at 60k before the end of this year, but I find that unlikely now. If I can get to 55k, I'll consider it a win. Because I got to thinking about how book one and book two both ended up around 110k-115k words after the first draft. Revision drafts and editing grew them to the 120k mark. So I don't have to write 120k words for book three to be "done." Aiming for 110k might be better so that I have room to go back and add stuff.

Because let's be honest, here. It's the last book of a trilogy. I'm going to get to the end and realize I have about a million loose ends to tie up somewhere in there.

So. If I can get to 55k this year, I will be halfway through the book. As official of an approximation as I can get.

So yes. I have revised my plan again. Fewer words. But more realistic goals. I feel good about this, now.

I may not update again before the first of the new year. I'll be with family and it's my birthday weekend. But. I may have news on how my siblings like the book, and I may want to do one last update on my final word count for the year.

And then, next week, I will do my yearly "where am I going, where have I been" post for my goals and accomplishments.

Those are always very motivating for me. I tend to get lost in the minutiae, so it's good for me to look at the big picture from time to time. What better time than the first of the new year?

Hope you all had a merry Christmas and have a lovely New Year!