December Update: I haven't updated since July???

Wow. This poor blog has been horribly neglected this year. I legit forgot about it again for almost six months.

But I have lots of writing progress to update about!

First, we kept meeting every Saturday through the end of September. I wrote about 7500 words across those three months, making good progress on both SP 2.5 and CLC.

In October, I took a break. I don't remember what exactly happened, there. I know some of it was travel-related. But I think a lot of it was lack of inspiration and a desire to spend time outside, as is typical for October.

But Neil and Dianne decided to host a non-Nanowrimo writing month, and they took my naming suggestion of AMOC (a month of confabulations), so I decided that I'd give it a shot. I haven't done an actual NaNo in many years. I skipped it entirely last year, and before that, I think I managed only a week, maybe two, each November. But using a new tracking website (Trackbear) and setting my own goal, I felt like it might be do-able. I was only going to do a half-NaNo at first, but then I decided that since that is an arbitrary number already, that aiming for 1k a day was a better goal. So a goal of 30k words, with the sub-goal in there finishing SP 2.5 first, then writing as many words as I could on CLC, maybe even finishing it.

I can officially say I completed my AMOC goal. I wrote 30k words, and I finished SP 2.5. I did not finish CLC, but I wrote 15k words on it. And now I'd say I'm within 5k of finishing the book. So, AMOC was a success. It was fun having a leaderboard again and having a graph like the old NaNo site. Keeping a streak of 14 days in a row to finish off SP was great. I didn't manage to keep a streak with CLC, but I did manage to write most days. And the best part is, I don't have the writing hangover I used to get with NaNo. I did have to write 3k on the last day to hit my goal, but the rest of the month, it felt like a comfortable pace. I hope that we do it again next year, because it was a lot of fun.

I also hope we do it again next year, because it put me pretty far ahead on my writing goals for next year. I am hoping to write at least a few thousand more words on CLC this December (since I don't have a writing hangover), so I'll be within a few thousand of done. That frees up two months next year in my project timeline.

I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, though. I could absolutely burn out before next November. But I plan on using Trackbear for my upcoming projects. I've already created a project for SP 3.1. I'm not sure when I'll start that one, but I do have the first line floating around in my mind, already, so I could start it any day now. I put my goal for the year next year as 60k. If I write 30k during AMOC next year, finish at least one SP novel and start another, that's easily 60k. That doesn't count any writing on Sleepy Shoals or any other project I decide to work on. It also doesn't count any editing, but I think I'll track that as a different goal.

I did really want to dive into Mystwatch edits next year. And I still might. But I'm not really feeling it right now. We'll see how I feel after holiday craziness and January blues have passed.

One last thing I haven't mentioned: I'm taking a hiatus from freelance editing. I really want to focus on my own writing for a year or two. Getting these projects that have been hanging on forever wrapped up is a huge priority right now. I know there will always be more projects, but getting back on track with two SP adventures a year, finishing CLC after all these years of dragging it out, and finally, finally giving Mystwatch the edit it deserves so I can do some sort of limited self-published print run are things that will allow me to reach a stage where I can either decide to lay my writing aside for good, or I can jump into a ton of new stuff and not have to look back.

So yeah. That's where I'm at, now, as we draw closer to the end of 2024. I am happy with my writing progress. I hope to write one or two more days before we ring in the New Year, but at this moment, I have written 56,000 words, spent 20 hours editing my work, wrote 4,000 brainstorming words, and have written a total of 60 days, averaging around 5 days per month. I even did a freelance developmental edit. Most importantly, I established a writing habit with my friends, getting together to at least look at my writing once a week for a few hours.

It's been a dang good year. Not my most prolific, for sure. But maybe my best since the days I was writing for publication. I'm looking forward to even more progress next year.