Happy New Year!! 2012 Wrap-up

Okay, so technically 2012 isn't over yet. But since I am sitting at the airport, preparing to jet off to Costa Rica with my amazing boyfriend, the writing year is over for me! I'm taking a real vacation for the next week and a half. NO guilting myself into writing (although if it happens, it happens) or freaking out about work. Can't wait! =D

But before that, I have to take a look back at what this writing year has been for me.

December was a little less productive than I would have hoped. One of my friends got married, which ended up wiping out a solid 4 days in the middle of the month, and after that I felt like I was playing catch up. So the month ended up being 3767 words total. (On only 4 different days!) Less than I'd hoped, but it represents another chapter done!

Which means that for the year, I clocked in at 38438 words. Yikes! But that was still more than 2011, and it met my goal  for the year. Because my goal was just to write, and I did.

But on the bright side, those words all represent progress on my novel. Brand new words that have never seen the light of day, coming together to build a new story! (I've dithered back on forth, but decided on not including my blogging in my wordcount.) And I only actually wrote on 43 separate days. Which means both that my writing sessions were decent when they occurred (~890 words on average), but woefully infrequent. Lots of room for improvement, then!

That's a good third of a novel. Sure, I'd like to write faster than 3 years per novel (I'm no GRRM!), but I won't turn my nose up at 1/3 of a novel!

For 2013, I have high but reasonable hopes. By this time next year, this novel is going to be complete. Originally I wanted to say second draft complete, but since that would include a month "rest" from the novel and an extensive drafting process...well, no need to set myself up for failure. I estimate that I have about 70k words to complete this first draft, and that seems like a decent increase over this year's lackluster total, but not an insurmountable task between work and travel and everything.

With a goal about twice what I wrote this past year, I'm looking at 86 writing days. That's less than 2 days per week! When I think about it that way, I know I can definitely do it. Butt in chair! And forward we go!

Happy New Year!!