Tag: random thoughts

General Writing

Hello

I can’t quite believe we’re here in mid-March and this is only the second post I’ve made this year.

While I ended 2017 on a creative high, and have had a huge amount of ideas between then and now, I’m a little bit lost.

Lost.

That’s a word I’ve used a lot recently because it’s the only one I can think of to describe how I’m feeling.

I’ve read 9 books this year, some I’ve loved and some I haven’t, but I’ve written no more than 4000 words. I’m lost, I’m tired, I have the ideas but not the motivation to follow them through.

I can’t even blame the rejection from one of the publishers I sent the first LWL novel to, because this feeling started long before that email arrived and, to be honest, I was kind of relieved to receive it?

I’ve heard the term ‘writers winter’ bandied about on a couple of groups I lurk in: it’s apparently a known phenomenon that every so often, writers go through a sparse spell, where they struggle to get the words on a page, whether it be on screen or in a notepad. It’s a small comfort to know other writers go through this because mostly I’m just wanting it to be over.

It’s not like writers’ block. WIth writers’ block, I usually find switching it up a little – writing by hand, using a prompt generate, using write or die etc. – generally works to get over it.

This… This is something different.

To any writers out there reading this, how do you break your writers winters? Or do you simply just keep yourself busy in other areas and wait for them to pass?

General Writing, Uncategorized

So. 2016 word count so far.

The novel is progressing well. Maybe not 50000-words-in-a-month well, but hey ho. That’s the way it goes sometimes.

I’m happy with the development. It doesn’t feel rushed. I’m building up to the big ‘turning point’ moment but it’s not quite there yet.

That’s okay.

So far this year, I’ve written somewhere between 74,198 (the first LWL story) and 175,224 words (LWL1, LWL2 so far & the original third story in a dust-gathering trilogy that spawned the whole thing back in March) this year.

That’s quite a lot.

Maybe not for someone who can write full-time, who doesn’t have a full-time job, family commitments and other silly life factors that get in the way.

For me, though? 175,000+ words over the course of an almost year is good.

There’ll be more before the end of the year, obviously, as there’s still some of November and all of December to go, but even if there wasn’t?

I can live with that.

It’s 175,000+ words more than any of my non-writer friends has written.

It’s 175,000+ words more than any of my colleagues, who think I’m odd for preferring nights in to nights out getting spending my hard earned money on extortionately priced alcohol, have written. 

I may not hit my NaNoWriMo target this year, but I’m still happy with what I’ve achieved. My writing may not pay the bills yet (to be fair, I’d kind of have to let someone else read it first for it to do that…) but it’s something I’ve kept doing through thick and thin, something I need to do in order to cope with everything else that’s going on, and I’m happy with that.

I hope my fellow writers out there are happy with their word count achievements, too.