aesmael

Way back in March of last year I decided to resume writing in earnest, as I had been doing less and less over previous years. To aid in this I also started using a spreadsheet to track how many words I wrote, so I could have something to look at and show myself I was getting somewhere.

Further, I also set myself goals with the intention of getting into a productive habit. For the first month, one hundred words each day. Two hundred in the second and finally four hundred words each day of the fourth month, which was intended to be kept up indefinitely.

Over the course of the year I made three attempts at making it to the fourth month in this system and each time I stumbled at the 300/day mark and did not write anything for about a month after. Possibly from this I should take the lesson that two hundred words per day is the most I can manage now and to stay with that until I find myself comfortably exceeding it.

The last time I attempted it, in October, November and December of last year, I made some further alterations to my goals since they really did not take into account the need for editing or the fickleness of writing. It was not much of a change, really: treating the daily target as an average to be aimed for rather than a firm line which must be crossed each day, and two new columns. One to show my average word count for the month so far and one to show me the average I need to make to meet that month's goal.

In retrospect I think it worked well. My final sheet for the month of December tells me the total amount of fiction I wrote was 48,571 words. I do not have numbers for any previous year to compare with but it is a nice large number and I am suitably impressed, even if it would not quite make a nanowrimo novel. I did write the second part of a triplet of novelettes/short stories, which possibly made the bulk of that word total, along with making substantial progress on a couple of other long-term projects and transcribing two of my longer stories to electronic form.

Looking back now, I was surprised to see how much fiction I posted here. Some of it is in fact from 2006, but that year feels like one in which I was still waiting.

Five old stories from years past:

Maricia [01.00]
sketch of a character for a shared world project
another two characters sketched
Sliced (actual story using setting of previous sketches)
Black Riders, dreadful beginning of the aforementioned triplet

An attempt at painting with words.

1 and 2 spontaneous pieces of something which never went further. A demonstration of my inability to write without any kind of idea or framework on which to hang the story.

One scene fragment placed where it would not be forgotten. I still am certain I could grow this seed but wonder if I dare spare the energy. Will it ever have its Someday?

For a time I tried writing a short piece each day based on the words selected as Word of the Day by a couple of iGoogle gadgets. I gave up after it proved too taxing for me to write anything else.