August 2018 Stats · 7:05pm Sep 3rd, 2018

This has been yet another productive month for me. I'm excited to dig into the details to see how far I've come.

It truly amazes me just how far I've come over the past few months. It's almost like I've come back full circle with regards to a rate I've not been able to keep up with since high school. Perhaps one could attribute such achievements to my continued unemployment with some degree of accuracy, but I didn't have this much activity even at my lowest back in 2015 when I was in this exact situation. I could only ever sum that up as being basically nothing at all.

Still, it has been a refreshing change of pace to write without requiring the same level of scrutiny. I'm blessed to have renewed confidence in that I can write at least marginally close to the standards I've set for myself. The countless hours I used to spend toiling away to get everything just right in the draft phase are now used for more writing. For those of you who didn't know, I don't look at my blogs past the initial edits, so you can see my progress by looking at them alone. (sorry if that's a spoiler, folks. ).

I'd like to take this time to recap my progress over the last few years for my new followers. You see, I've very much become a numbers girl these past few months, although I don't allow my goals to tarnish my work with excess wordage. Or, at the very least, keep it to a minimum. New Tune is an excellent example as such, for I set out to write 10k words in it in this past month, but it had a natural ending point with 8.3k instead.

These goals have decidedly marked an improvement in my output, and I don't intend to stop doing it for some time. For perspective, I'll show highlight again how fast I used to write:

May, 2017 to April, 2018 Achievements:

17,367 total words written

Then, in May, I decided to start tracking my writing output. Though I may have had a rough spot, I have by and large broken out of my writing slump.

May Achievements: 9,191 words
June Achievements: 6,336 words
July Achievements: 12,007 words

I've already highlighted these numbers in the past, but it really keeps me motivated to look back at what I used to achieve and what I am capable of now. As I understand it, this is also an appropriate thing to do when one reaches new plateaus.

I think the moment to reveal my results in this month of writing. So here was my goal:

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

I later appended it when I realized I needed to finish a story request for an ailing friend. I temporarily set Pandemic on hiatus and worked on finishing New Tune.

34,000 total words written
16,000 words written in Effigy of a Dragon
10,000 words written in New Tune
8,000 words written in A Series of Chaotic Events

Now to reveal how much I actually got to write. Drum roll, please! Oh wait, we can't do that on paper. Ahem.

August, 2018 Achievements:

8,440 words written in Effigy of a Dragon
8,284 words written in New Tune
7,922 words written in A Series of Chaotic Events
Total word written: 24,676

I feel that I have broken my personal glass ceiling. I have written more than double my previous record. Hell, this is more than I wrote in the entirety of last year. When I analyzed my potential last month, I suspected I might be able to do it soon. To see it actualized is a whole other story. There is also a real possibility this is the most I've ever written in a specific time frame, and that is the most astounding thought of all to me.

Perhaps I will continue to reach new plateaus that leave me flabbergasted, but for now, I feel I've tooted my own horn enough. The work is not over yet, as this month has produced two chapters in Effigy of a Dragon, two chapters in A Series of Chaotic Events, and New Tune. I also have to take into account that I still have yet to get back to work on A Diamond For Your Trouble. There is so much to edit now, in fact, that I feel I must take a week off from writing to properly address each of them. I expect this will be challenging to finish on its own, but I want to have regular updates for Pandemic: Hope and A Diamond For Your Trouble by the end of this month.

September, 2018 Goals:

Totals Words Written: 25,000 words
9,000 words written in Effigy of a Dragon
8,000 words written in Pandemic: Hope
4,000 words written in A Series of Chaotic Events
4,000 words written in A Diamond For Your Trouble
Total Words Edited: 32,992
15,876 words edited in A Diamond For Your Trouble
9,180 words edited in New Tune
7,936 words edited in A Series of Chaotic Events

That's all for now, folks. Here's to hoping for my continued success.