August 2014 Wrap-Up

Only a couple days behind!

August was A Month. I don't quite have words to describe the whirlwind of emotions and ideas and everything. There will probably be a very introspective post next week--breaking the chain of all my previous light-hearted posts...

But for today, let's talk August numbers!

I knew August was going to be low-key after my crazy productivity in June and July. I did achieve my goal of finishing novel 7's first draft! It's a short lil thing, only 42k, but it's there for me to work on now. I intended to fill my "cooling off" period by writing shorts and editing novel 6. I did do some editing, but no shorts, and there just wasn't a lot of new words in August. But that's okay! Not every month needs to be a 25k month. Especially not ones where I am moving apartments and starting a new job at the same time. Plus traveling. And, you know, life.

Between all that, I came up with 8165 new words over 9 writing days (so 22 non-writing days).

Wordcount goal: 85.1%
Non-writing days goal: 31.8%
Agents queried: 9
Contests entered: 1
Rejections received: 3 forms, 1 personalized, 5 closed due to no response

All in all, I am happy with August. Did I meet my metrics goals? No. But that was more because my metrics weren't set right than anything else. I did spend plenty of time working on my writing, editing and reading about the writing craft and submitting to #PitchWars and all that good stuff. I'm headed into September with my head held high!

So what does September hold? Editing, mostly! Yay! I have already broken out the purple pen and the post-its, and novel 6 will yield to my crushingly awesome editorial skills. My goal is to have my quick read through and notes done and my revision pass in hand by the end of the month. That may not sound like a lot, but it most definitely is! I would still like to do some work on short fiction, so I hope to write one flash fiction story a week (I have to for #FlashFridayFootage!) and one longer short story over the course of the month. Which means I would need at the very least 2800 words, so goal is set! I would say I could do that in 8 writing days, so let's put the non-writing days goal at no more than 22. Again, this doesn't sound like a lot (because it's not!), because the focus is editing, which I don't have metrics for. Mostly becayse I'm not sure how to enter blood, sweat, and tears into Excel.

And on I go!

I'm just glad my kitchen doesn't look like this anymore!