July 2018 Stats · 12:29am Aug 4th, 2018
It has come to that time of the month again. Let's see how I performed in July.
So I had roughly three weeks to work with in July, and for the vast majority of the last week I was focused mostly on preparing for an interview that didn't pan out well this past Monday. Unfortunately, I have been passed up. The rejection was painful to receive, and it took me until now to bounce back from it. I sent a thank you letter, and I am somewhat hopeful that it will show my passion and willingness to shore up the weaknesses that led to the rejection in the first place.
But I am now deviating from the purpose of this stats blog. After tallying up my words for the month, I am happy to announce that I have broken my writing record this month! Here are my stats for the month:
July, 2018 Achievements:
12,007 total words written
5,944 words written in Effigy of a Dragon
2,929 words written in Pandemic: Hope
3,073 words written in A Series of Chaotic Events
This amounted to completing a few chapters, as well:
two chapters completed in Effigy of a Dragon
one chapter completed in Pandemic: Hope
one chapter completed in A Series of Chaotic Events
Now, only the one chapter in Pandemic: Hope has been published, but it's nice to finally see some of my work starting to make a dent in my writing projects. All I have to do before the release of the second chapter in A Series of Chaotic Events is to do some edits and then I will publish it. You should see it, along with chapter one fully edited, air before the weekend is up.
After a few quick calculations, it would appear that I have had a 23.5% increase over my record in the month of May as well as a 47.2% rise in productivity over the month of June.
Sadly, I ultimately still didn't reach my goal of 21,000 words, but I was only off by a mere 9,000 words. Judging by pure numbers, that still seems like a lot of ground for me, personally, to cover. However, I am starting to feel to positive effects of pushing myself to write more and more. Ideas are starting to come to me more naturally than before, and it feels like I am starting to make a few more connections with regards to my writing style.
After a few more months of this, I think we will get to see me writing 30-40k words per month versus 10k. In fact, that leads me up to August goals. Let's see if I can push myself further!
August, 2018 Goals:
40,000 total words written
16,000 words written in Effigy of a Dragon
16,000 words written in Pandemic: Hope
8,000 words written in A Series of Chaotic Events
In addition to failing to meet my writing goal, I struggled to find time between writing to meet my editing goals. In fact, I ended up not having anything edited for A Diamond For Your Trouble, which does concern me. I want it to be ready to put into the slot that is currently filled by A Series of Chaotic Events by the time it is finished, so I'm going to establish the same goal I did last month.
Additional Goals:
15,876 words to edit in A Diamond For Your Trouble
I also have a kindle project I will be starting this month to try to earn some money on the side and keep bills being paid.
All in all, I have a very busy writing month in store for me. To help facilitate meeting my goals, I shall establish smaller goals this month to keep things chugging along at a reasonable pace. I think it will make things easier for me if I break up the monthly goal into weekly goals, so 16k words from one start this month becomes 4k words from it per week, for example. We shall see how that ends up being for us.
If my calculations are correct, I have to write approximately 500 words/day from two of my stories and 250 words/day from the other. I'll have to go a little over for the first few days and then after that it should be easier to keep on track. Perhaps I can schedule the weekends to write a little more than on weekdays.
Having these minor goals should ensure that I am regularly working on each project as opposed to writing it in bursts like I did in the previous month. I should also consider putting myself a week ahead of posts soon so that I can establish a regular posting schedule, something that I have severely needed since pretty much my inception on this website.
Regardless, if you've read up until now, then I hope you've enjoyed this blog post. I don't remember if I've mentioned it before, but doing these stat posts really help keep me focused on trying to reach all my writing goals. It's finally nice to see something finally work with me to get me writing. 
Sounds good.
Well that's great to see that you're at least making progress Amore. You know, seeing you publically talk about your writing goals seriously reminds me of the YouTuber Jenna Moreci, who used to talk about her writing goals every single season. If you don't watch her, I strongly recommend her. She's by far one of my biggest pieces of inspiration at the moment. She talks about all of the goals she passed and failed, then sets herself new ones for that season. Seeing stuff like this is inspirational, and it's amazing to hear that it actually works. It's kind of inspiring me to set up goals myself, because I have a ton of stuff to do. I mean, I have two active YouTube Channels (one about reviewing movies, and the other being my AusFlick channel for Brony content) I'm constantly working on my Fimfictions (Particularly The Dimension Trilogy) I'm a reviewer on the Reviewers Cafe, I frequently practise my other hobbies including playing the drums, and I'm out of the house all day twice a week. If you're wondering how the hell I balance all of that, my answer is simple: I don't. I have so many projects in so many areas, it's kind of overwhelming. It doesn't matter how productive I am in one area, I always feel like I'm procrastinating on on another. For example, I'm on a role with The Second Dimension, but it's been months since my last AusFlick video. I'm really struggling to know how to balance them all, so creating weekly goals should theoretically alleviate some of this. I would still struggle to decide how to organise it though. How do you in particular balance between writing fics, and reviewing/reading them?
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You should know to retain the reviewer status on Reviewer Café, we implemented a one review a month rule. It's mainly just to keep us going. We have a thing now too for one free drawing commission for the best reviewer of each month now.
Also, I feel similar situation with projects. I mean, check out my front page to see where I'm at with this. I tacked on another 10k words to my goal this month because a writing commission I was working on, but put down temporarily, is for a friend who may be dying in a month or two.
So I have to balance streaming, writing, job hunting, interviewing, and Creator's Guild stuff somehow. It's crazy!
Once I knock out a few of my projects on here, I will settle for an average of 30k words a month, I think.
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Okay, sounds like a good way to balance everything. I'm glad to hear about the whole 'One Review Per Month' rule, that's definitely something for me to listen to. Though one thing I should say is that I've claimed two stories, but neither of them are in the Under Review folder, despite claiming them exactly where you told me to. Oh well.
But yeah, seeing how organised you appear, I should probably come up with a system myself.
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You should speak with Calamity Velvet. She's Curator of the group and thus in charge of folders.
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Okay, thanks. I just finished reading a Fimfiction for my next review now.