Novenas & Novellas

April 2025 was a bit of a rough month for me, writing-wise, and my final word count then was under 2K. I’m pleased to see that, this April, I can at least report a word count of five figures: 13,750 exactly. Unfortunately, that figure only represents a little over seventy percent of my monthly goal, meaning that I’ve fallen behind on catching up the annual goal. As of this writing I’m at 86.45%.

I spent a healthy amount of my writing time going through with self-publishing “Whitewood,” which took a more effort than I thought it would (although I learned a lot, so I’ll be able to shorten the process in the future.) I’ve also created a hard-copy version of Standing in the Dark for anyone who might wish to purchase one, but aside of listing it on this site, I don’t plan to promote it. (I’ve already done some promotion for “Whitewood.”)

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At the end of my last writing review post, I noted that I didn’t think I could catch my word count up to where it should be during the month. I was right: I didn’t. But I certainly came close. I was at 53% of goal at the end of February; by the end of March, I was at 94%.

It was a very good month, even though my posting activity on this blog fell by the wayside. I began posting Standing in the Dark on March 1. By doing so, I gave myself both a deadline and an incentive to get it done. It worked: I finished on March 22, and made final adjustments on the 26th, following beta feedback. I posted the last chapter of the story the evening of the 28th. Final word count came in around 80,600, which just barely squeaks into the definition of a novel for the thriller/suspense genre where it would reside if it were not fan fiction.

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In my last update, I noted that I had a goals list and a plan for February, and the month started out strong. Unfortunately, it didn’t stay that way. Final word count was 12,982, which was an improvement from January but still short of the goal of 18,500. The more telling statistic, though, is that I wrote 8,887 words (68%) in the first ten days of the month. After that, things fell off dramatically.

This is a pattern I need to remember as I go into March. This said, I’m also taking a few extra steps to work on my ultimate goal of getting my rear end into the seat for writing every single day. From there, my word counts often take care of themselves.

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Oh, wow. Did I ever drop the ball when it came to writing in January 2025. Final word count for the month was 7,697 (against a goal of 20K).

It seems it’s time for a reset. Fortunately, February is starting on a Saturday which means that I have a very real opportunity to start the month strong — and that’s my plan.

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On November 30th, I noted that I’d had a little bit of irregularity in my writing thanks to some real life issues getting in the way, and I concluded with a challenge to myself to hang on to the momentum I’d found toward the end of the month, and to increase it a little, in December.

Oh, wow. Did I ever. December, with 34,294 words, became my 2024 month with the highest word count. A good bit of this was composing blog posts that went up during the first half of the month, as well as revising two shared-universe stories that had previously been accepted. I also did a good bit of work on Standing in the Dark, particularly during the last weekend of the month.

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In my last post, I stated that, even though I’m not doing NaNoWriMo anymore, I wanted to designate November as a focus month for writing anyway:

To that end, I’m committing to writing something every single day. I’m not going to worry about specific word counts, because I know my writing habits well enough to know that that will take care of itself if I just get my rear end into my seat.

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After a really strong September — during which I had my second over-30K month this year — things got a little weird during October. But, by the time the month ended, I was putting things back together and I’ve since been able to pick up my usual writing pace again.

My biggest event, of course, was SMucK-a-Palooza during the last weekend of September. I was really excited about getting to go, and things went fine until the day I was scheduled to fly up. That day, September 26, also went down in history as the date that Hurricane Helene made landfall in the United States*.

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August was a quiet month for me in terms of writing seminars and activities, but that meant I had more time to get drafting done, and my word count for the month reflects that; it was higher than July’s. I’m also enthused because, for the first time in 2024, my average daily word count has gone above 500 words per day for the year to date. It didn’t happen until the 28th, and it’s only just barely which means I need to keep the momentum going, but it did happen and, as of this writing, is still the case.

That’s been carrying me through as I realize that I’m way behind on Standing in the Dark, to the point that right now I don’t expect I’m going to finish it by my self-imposed December 31st deadline. However, that’s not yet carved in stone. I have weekend writing retreats scheduled for both September and October, and while I’m not formally participating in NaNoWriMo, I’m doing it informally by setting a high word goal for that month.

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