Day: November 15, 2016

The next book: writing plans

Lynn

I’ve started my next book. At this point, I’m 12,606 words into it. I’ve also started another book (and have two others already started, too), but I’m not going to let myself work on it except when I’ve already finished my goals for the current book. See my previous post about writing one book at a time for reasons.

It’s important that I keep my interest level high on this book because it has a tight deadline. It had an even tighter deadline, but I had to nix that one. See another previous post for those reasons. :)

I’m aiming for about 63,000 words on this book.

The median word count for the series is 67,886 and the average word count is 67,655.

The books range in length from just over 50,000 words to just over 85,000. It’s a pretty big range, to be honest, but I can’t seem to control for length when I’m writing. I wanted them all to be 50,000 but we see how that worked out. :D

I started this book estimating 50,000 words, realized that just wasn’t probable, and raised it to 68,000 after seeing those numbers. Now I’ve backed off, because I actually want it to be closer to 60,000 and I don’t want to set myself up for writing a longer book just by default.

At this point, here’s what I need to finish by 11/30/2016, which is the date I’d like to finish: 3,150 words a day (average).

I’m going to keep this post updated with my progress, although it’ll probably be in batches instead of a daily update.

Why I’m (mostly) forcing myself to stick to writing one book at a time

Lynn

I’m writing this down because I’m sure I’m going to forget it, just when I need to remember it most.

Taking too long to finish a book is a sure way to bore me! I have to start finishing my books faster, if I want to save my love of writing.

Because honestly, it’s starting to bore me. I’ve written a lot of books. There aren’t many things in life that hold my attention after I’ve finished—hell, half the time I can’t even finish.

I’m not a finisher by nature. It’s a real chore to finish.

But books aren’t books if they don’t get finished, and I sure can’t sell unfinished books.

If I lose interest in a story, the story loses out, and the quality does not improve, trust me on that. Writing slow causes me to lose the threads of the story, and to lose motivation, while writing fast keeps my brain in the story, excited and creative. This even applies at the micro level, because my sentences flow better when I don’t constantly tinker with them. I know this is true. I still have to fight that desire regularly. :)

I come up with more ideas, faster, when I’m writing a lot. And I enjoy writing so much more when I’m writing often and fast than I do when it’s a slog and I’m agonizing over plot decisions or worrying about word choices.

If it’s not fun, I’m not going to do it. That’s just the truth.

Blame it on ADHD or laziness, or whatever, but it’s true. If it’s not fun for me, I will do everything in my power to avoid doing it, and when you’re your own boss, that gets to be a problem.

Ah…

Well, I feel better having gotten that out. Now, on to the next post and the day’s writing.

Word count post for Nov. 14, 2016

Lynn

224 words.

So disappointing, considering my goal yesterday.

Daily average since 9/19: 952 words.

I spent last night figuring out just what I would need to do to finish the book I’m working on in the time I have left, realized it was a fool’s dream considering my actual track record, and came up with a new plan, something that still pushes me to do better than I have before, but something that’s not so far outside the realm of possibility.

So I have a new plan for this book. One I feel pretty good about it. I’ll detail it in a post of it’s own, because this is a word count post, not a goal post. ;)