June Update: Halfway through the year!

It always cracks me up when I go back and read my previous month's update and plans and compare it to what actually happened.

June has been a crazy, busy, unpredictable month, as, erm, predicted. But. Writing things went a little differently than I thought they would.

First, my vacation plans fell through. Or rather, I bailed on them. It's a long story that I won't go into here, but rather than going to MN, I came home. And for a few days I did nothing but rest. Mentally and physically. And then, I started on the dev edit. The dev edit that came a week late, so I did not get to do it before my trip.

Which worked out. I wouldn't have wanted to be finalizing it on the last day before I left, as most of that day was spent shopping and packing. And after having the days to rest, I was able to come at it feeling refreshed. I got a really solid edit done in less than a week and got it back to her almost a week early.

And I won't be getting it back until today!

So that left me with about two weeks to work on my own stuff.

I wasn't confident that I'd be able to get into Mystwatch and do my edit in that amount of time, so I sat down with my project schedule, and did some rearranging. As of right now, my plan is to have CLC finished by the end of July's session of Camp NaNo. Once that is finally off my plate, fitting in writing words around my freelance editing project in June and July, I will have the mental capacity to go after Mystwatch 2 edits again. I'm giving it one month. August. My, erm, shittiest month. But. I've decided that I don't actually have to get that edit done this year. There's no penalty, so if I make decent headway on it in August, I can leave the rest of the edit for another time. I'm okay with that, right now. And then I have September and October to write the next SP adventure, then NaNo for my new project, and December to outline Druid Wars 2.

Phew!

So, looking at the two weeks I had in June, I was like, this new timeline is ambitions. And hell, that's two weeks I didn't think I was going to have free. I should be able to write my normal monthly goal of 8k in that amount of time if I buckle down.

Hahahahaha.

Oh, Sara. When will you learn.

But I did learn. I learned very quickly that was ridiculous. So I scaled it back. Told myself to aim for 4.5k. As long as I didn't have to write more than 15k words in July, I could afford to write fewer than 8k words in June.

It's going to be tight, and I'm still not sure I can wrap CLC up by 100k. But. I ended up writing 6k words on it this month. That puts me at 87k. So that leaves 13k for July. I'll probably aim for 12k, because July is a busy month, too. With the copy edit and both Althea's and Violet's birthdays. And, y'know. The 4th.

Blah blah blah, boring number stuff.

I am quickly nearing the end, in more exciting plot-related stuff. I've got a few key scenes left, and the downtime that goes between them, then I'm done. I'm starting to really believe I can finish this book this year. I wasn't sure when I started into this year what all I'd be able to accomplish. Turns out, quite a lot. If I can, in fact, finish this, and knock out one more SP story...I'll have finished a novel that's been outstanding for a few years as well as wrapping up season 2 of SP. That is huge. Even more huge if I finish the Mystwatch 2 book edit.

But there's no penalty if I don't manage it. I'm seeing what I am capable of if I go slow and listen to myself. I'm feeling this out so that I can fall into a routine that will sustain me until retirement. Or at least until I'm 50. I can decide what to do with my back catalogue at that point, if anything. And if I am a SP adventure or a book or two short, no worries. I either take another year or push myself to work faster.

My biggest goal this year is to see what I can do, how much I can do, consistently, and avoid burning myself out.

A big component of that is going to be NaNo. Can I do NaNo and not burn out? If I don't do NaNo, can I finish books? Although for that one, I already know I can, since I think Myswatch 3, I started and ended outside of NaNo and only ever managed 1600 words in NaNo proper...although looks like maybe 35k during Camp NaNo sessions.

I won't lie. I like the idea of spending October planning out a novel, November writing 50k of it, and then the next year spending a few months finishing it up. But maybe I can't do that. Maybe I just take a year to write a whole book, and then take a year editing and writing SP and other stuff. That's what I want to find out. And I can't truly find that out until I get CLC done and Mystwatch edited. I need to pick a project and see it through.

So. Maybe I don't do Druid Wars 2 next year. Maybe I finish whatever NaNo novel I start. And maybe I start writing Druid Wars 2 for NaNo next year and finish it the year after that.

It's only the end of June. Still a lot of wait and see how things go.

That said, I wanted to note that the writing has been fun and fairly easy the past two weeks. I definitely have times of feast and famine with writing. I am much more productive and in the flow in the summer. That's always been the case. By September, I'll be in peak writing mode, I assume. Hopefully I can put it all to good use.

Right now, I'm still working on things I feel comfortable with. It's when I start a totally new project in a totally new world where it's going to get scary and hard.

Or maybe exciting and easy.

Time will tell.

I'm really enjoying this year, seeing what I'm capable of when I just let myself follow my flow.

And, y'know. Learn the difference between I'm not writing because I'm depressed and can't and I'm not writing because the next scene is hard or I can't focus because whatever reason. Been a lot of that the last two weeks, but once I settle in, the focus finally comes.

I am content with my writing journey thus far. It's going really well, and I'm happy. Half a year down. Half a year to go!

And then seven more years until....profit?  :D