A Quarter of a Million Words, and I’m Still Feeling Like a Slacker?
October is almost over. I can’t believe how crazy it’s been. When it started, I had pie in the sky plans for finishing my third Legally in Love novel, and I was off to a running start, about 45,000 words in ten days. Yay! And then… for the next three weeks, not even 100 words as life high-jacked all my plans.
Sometimes, just to feel like a bit of a martyr perhaps or so that I don’t feel like a slouch and a time-wasting loser, I make a “ta-da” list instead of a “to do” list, especially when I am down on myself for not reaching a certain arbitrary deadline or goal I’ve given myself. Looking back on the word count disaster, I have to do this or else I’ll just mope.
TA-DA LIST:
Edited three 90,000+-word novels, for myself and two crit partners. That, my pretties, is over a quarter of a million words edited in the last 12 days. Shoosh!
Cleaned my house, yard, and truck for when my parents came to visit—quite a feat, since I’ve been writing like a maniac, and let’s just say things had started looking like nature was going to take the place back as her own.
Planned a lunch for 50 teenage boys
Planned and prepared a meal for 35 teenagers—the same day as the 50-kid lunch
Formed a committee to create a scholarship
Helped my kids enter stuff in the county fair, went to the fair FOUR times, and worked twice at the political booth
Went on three all-day trips out of town for kids’ events and stuff for my husband’s work
Prepared and taught a church lesson and attended quite a few meetings (normal Mormon life being that we believe in meetings; we believe in all meetings; we have attended many meetings and hope to attend all meetings…)
Ran 55 miles and biked about 70
Drove for the field trip (I’m sitting in the parking lot at the Observatory writing this right now)
Helped kids organize a total of SEVENTEEN (no exaggeration) different costumes, including sewing a skunk costume from scratch (and I don’t really sew)
Chauffeured a cute little batch of girls to play practice a dozen times and volunteered to keep the peace in the dressing room
Listened to and approved 4 hours of audio for the Immersed audiobook project (yay! It’s happening!)
Released TWO novels: Asked & Answered, and Under the Mistletoe (a Timeless Romance Anthology) which went to #1 in Amazon’s “Clean Romance” new releases. Woot!
Organized the ARC distribution of those novels to my Review Team
Formalized a Review Team
Developed an official mailing list
Created and distributed an author newsletter
Chose covers for two new novels, which I’ll reveal sometime soon
Had a great visit with my parents
Organized a family lunch for 30 at my house
And last but not least, saw my little daughter get baptized on one of the sweetest, happiest days of my entire life.
This is only stuff I can think of off the top of my head, and I’m not even going to mention the little skirmishes I had to fight against myself now and then. One thing that’s not on this list: slept eight hours at a stretch even once. One thing I wish weren’t on the list: gained seven pounds. Alas.
I know there’s a touch of martyr syndrome in me, and I’m working on that, but when I look at this list it does make me feel a touch better and less like a total slacker as a writer. Now, enough whining. I’m going to go add some padding to my word count. I wish I could get this whole project done in time to start a new book (which I outlined on one of the out of town trips) for NaNoWriMo for November, but I’m going to just cut myself some slack and write this book at a reasonable pace.
Meanwhile, ASKED AND ANSWERED comes out tomorrow! I’m really happy with the feedback reviewers have given it so far. It’s still fluff, but I think the characters are sweet, and their story makes me happy. I hope it will make you happy too.
