novels – Page 28 – Meilo Zaborowski: Author

internal screaming

Goal 1) TAP 2

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 31,500 words
Where I am: 31,758 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
This week’s been so up and down. Despite my planning, getting my words on Sunday was like pulling teeth. I couldn’t seem to focus at all. My anxiety was spiking for no good reason and I couldn’t shake it. Yesterday was great, and I went quite a bit over my daily goal. Then today was rough again. I actually stopped partway through a scene and moved to the next because I can’t figure out how to end it. To be fair, it does deal with an existential question that I’m not even sure how to answer in real life. Gonna have to really think on that one.

What’s really annoying is my scenes have gotten shorter lately, which is dropping my average scene wordcount like a stone. Which in turn makes my estimated number of scenes to go creep up. Not a fan.

Don’t threaten me with a good time

Goal 1) TAP 2

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 30,000 words
Where I am: 30,037 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Sunday was rough. I couldn’t figure out how to drive the story where I needed it to go. So I pulled a leaf from Holly’s book (surprise surprise) and worked on a couple of scenes that take place much later, one of which I just couldn’t get out of my head until I wrote it. Thankfully, Chris (my boyfriend) and I took a little road trip on Tuesday, so while he drove, I was able to spend some time planning some of the scenes I need in between. Which turned out to be kind of moot for this week, since all of yesterday’s words and almost half of today’s went to one of the aforementioned later scenes.

Oh well. Just means I have a full coffer for next week.

Learning to heal with a heart wide open

Goal 1) TAP 2

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 28,500 words
Where I am: 28,295 words
On Target or Behind: Behind

How’s It Going:
The scene I wrote Friday made me cry. Twice. I’d like to say this is normal, if not encouraged, ~~at least according to Holly Lisle,~~ but uh. This has never happened to me before. I mean, I make myself laugh all the time while I’m writing but… this is definitely new. Am I getting that good, or is it the Prozac making me actually feel my feelings? We may never know.

I didn’t write last Sunday due to… personal issues, so I’m a little behind. But while trying to come up with today’s scene (yesterday’s? technically I finished it before midnight…) I realized I’d never given my antagonist a face. Like, sure, we know Lucifer is the ultimate antagonist, but who’s working for him right now? Who is actively working against Madison? I’m gonna have some work in revision weaving this, as of now, new character in, but that’s for later. I’m just gonna pretend they’ve been here all along. And, I’ve figured out some more things for later down the road involving said antagonist.

Shit’s getting good.

Guess who’s back, back again

Holy shit, where has the time gone? I meant to take a break for a few weeks and… it turned into a few months. Whoops.

So what’s been happening? I moved into an apartment with my boyfriend(!!!), I graduated from TSTC with my AAS in Cyber Security, we got a husky puppy (his name is Atticus and he’s gorgeous), I got my Network+ certification, still haven’t found another job yet, and my mental health has been slowly circling the drain. I’m seeing a therapist and my primary doc has put me on Prozac, which I’ve been on for just over 3 weeks. It’s been… a lot.

But part of my healing is gonna involve me getting back to writing. So here we are. Goals, y’all!

GOAL 1) TAP 2 (ACTUAL TITLE PENDING)

My clear target is: Finish sequel to The Atheist’s Prayer
My reachable deadline is: December 31, 2021
My working days are: Fri-Sun (maybe Tues?)
My method of measuring progress: Word count
My end goal: Finish the damn thing (preferably 50,000 words)
My daily goal, and number of available days: Write 500 words, 3 days a week. So 1500 words a week. At least.
My leverage — WHY I need to do this: To further my name as an author and hopefully sell more books. I’m also losing my ever-loving mind right now and I need to get back to writing regularly because it’s one of the few things that keeps me sane and functioning as a relatively normal human being.

And since I actually have been writing here and there in the interim, here’s my progress so far.

Goal 1) TAP 2

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 27,000 words
Where I am: 27,239 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
My extended absence notwithstanding, I’ve made some good progress. After I hit the midpoint, I took some time to map out a good chunk of the rest of “act two”, or at least lay out the skeleton (which if you’ve been with me for a while, you’ll know this is my modus operandi at this point). For some reason, looking at the hefty wordcount I have left to go is far more daunting than looking at the estimated number of scenes left… which is obviously a much smaller number. Go figure. -eyeroll-

Forward Momentum

Goal 1) TAP 2

My Goal: 500 WPD, 2000 WPW
Where I planned to be: 24,000 words
Where I am: 23,573 words
On Target or Behind: Behind

How’s It Going:
Trying to catch up. Not doing too bad, I don’t think. Been dealing with a lot in the real world lately, so I feel like only being down less than a day’s worth of words isn’t terrible. There’s no sense in beating myself up about it anyway.

All I can do is keep moving forward.