June Update: Some small progress

I wrote in June! Woohoo!

Not many days of the month. Not according to my plan. Not nearly as many words on the days I did write that I had wanted. But. I wrote.

I wrote nearly 7200 words!

About 2400 of those words were me wrapping up Shadow Self, the Witch's Daughter #4. It needs a lot of editing, but the story is there. It's longer than I wanted. Each episode of her story has been a bit longer. But I think that's okay.

The rest of the words went to Sally Prescott. About 5k. Just shy. It started out kinda rough. I didn't really feel like I had the Sally humor, and I did a lot of meandering. But I finally hit my stride with it today and got some definite Sally moments. So. I am happy with it. It took five thousand words, but it's finally ready to launched into the main adventure. Which, to be honest, I should have probably gotten to faster. But I left the last adventure with a lot of upheaval, so it made sense to me to deal with the aftermath a bit at the start of this next adventure.

Anyway. Rocky start, but feeling good. I think I might be able to write some more on it next month. Maybe won't finish it. Maybe won't even get 10k, since that seems like a lot for me right now. But hey. When I was working on the last Mystwatch book all those years ago, I kept telling myself that 5k a month would get me to the end of the book by the end of the year. And so it goes with this as well. If I write 5k a month for two or three more months, I will finish this SP adventure.

That's really the main goal I want to accomplish this year. I just don't think I'd be okay with myself if I didn't get at least one SP adventure written a year. She's been a pretty constant companion the last five or so years. I've had goals where I wanted to get two or three adventures written a year so eventually I finish this series so I can start publishing it. But. I think I write her for me more than for publishing. Especially now. It's like with painting. I paint these landscapes to share on Instagram or put up to admire, but the abstract stuff I've been doing lately, that's for me. For me to do the act of painting without worrying too much about the end result. It's about the process.

Publishing is still one of those things I go back and forth on in general, though. I'm in a "I don't ever want to publish except maybe so my brother has a physical copy book of stuff" phase right now. Maybe when I finally retire and have more time, I will spend more time writing and I will be more serious about wanting to put it out there. But for now, I mostly want to finish things for me.

That may change before I retire. It has many times before.

So anyway. I met my goal of working on SP and finishing Shadow Self. Next month, I want to write at least 5k on SP. Maybe 10K if I can. But I will have a dev edit for a client in the middle of the month, plus nieces and nephew birthday parties and the 4th. So I will be pretty happy if I manage 5k.

At the end of July, we'll see where I'm at. I'll likely do a push to finish the SP adventure. But I also might be ready for Mystwatch by that point. Those characters were whispering in my head the other day. And Jack and I went downtown and made vampire jokes, which made me a bit nostalgic.

Sally first.

Then maybe Diana.

Then...maybe the Order and Chaos kids. But probably more likely it will be Sleepy Shoals.

That's probably more than I can get to this year, so I will leave it at that. I am just beyond happy I got over 7k written this month.