So how’s writing going?

That’s the question I ask myself every day. I’m finding that my goals are shifting because planning seems to be taking a lot of time. The characters have to have names. The places have to have backgrounds. How many islands are there? How many empires are there? How does magic work? etc…

Loosely, about four or five scenes have been written. However, I can tell you that I’m writing more than the end of last year and with greater consistency. This book might actually be the one. Things are clicking more and more.

If you focus on word count and don’t have yourself a plan, it’s easy to write yourself into a hole. Trust me, I’ve been doing this a few years now. It’s what happened with my last book. This time I’m making sure I get things right.

In the process of putting a book together I’ve reached out to someone to be my “writing buddy”. Basically we’re going to exchange work perhaps once per week or so and critique. I’m using this as a strategy to force myself to actually add words to this thing. Like in many endeavors, it helps to have help.

My end goal is to publish by December. I feel like this is reasonable since one book a year is quite common and December is a good time away. I’m aiming for 4 or 5 drafts (including the final manuscript), in the beginning gunning for 700-800 words per day. Not exactly Nanowrimo but not nothing either.

I’m not giving away the working title of this book yet but a good bit of planning has already been done. I know where I’m going in a general sense.

This is the first of several writing updates. When I’m finally done with this thing I will have accomplished a major long-term goal I’ve had for years.