RedWritesBooks

NoNo is done. And I learned a lot. Here are a few lessons:

1 - I vastly overestimated my word count to be achieved. But I also vastly overshot my word count goals with all of the non-word-making parts of the job that I also do.

2 - I wasn't good at tracking my words. I'd often write for several days and not record. Or, after a long stretch, I'd get up exhausted and just not do the one more step of coming onto SIA to track my efforts. It became an extra thing on my list. However, when I DID record my words, it was always informative in many ways.

3 - I work fast. Like, really, really fast. I've always known this about me. I've been at over a million words since 2016 and will more than double that this year. It's a win. I don't say it as a brag, but as confidence in one of my strengths. Believe me, I also have weaknesses. But creating fast, quality, story progressing words is not one of them. I know I had at least 8 days in November when I just plain didn't track my words, one of which was a 6 hour flying stretch, and I still ended up at 107,015 as a recorded total.

4 - So this becomes a highlight to one of my greatest weaknesses; I'm doing TOO MUCH. Period. There was zero way I was going to get through all of the work on my plate, even at my ridiculous writing pace. I had my "other general projects" category and I went over my estimated word count on it even without all of the tracking. I didn't realize just how much work I had in this "other general projects" category but I now know that answer: TOO MUCH. It isn't a case of capacity planning, but just capacity. I was in my end of year review period, so seeing the words tracked forced me to stick to my "NOs" for the things I'm dropping next year. I'll end up over 2 million words this year, just shy of 2.5. My library doesn't show it. I'm too scattered. Too many projects for too many people. Too many yeses that neither grow me as an author nor grow my bottom line.

5 - I really do love the words. I always have. It's almost painful to realize how much of the other "stuff" I've allowed to overshadow that as I work my business model and career.

6 - AI is frustrating. I am pragmatic about it. (Use the tools only as tools but keep creating my art in the human way. Not searching for a debate here. This is the place I've landed ethically.) But a piece of me knows how prevalent it is and it continues to grow. I worry about the quantity over quality that is bleeding into our industry. Am I only adding to the noise? Sometimes it makes me want to simply write for the sake of writing . . .

7 . . . but writing, as my friend Chris says, is only complete when read (or performed or watched in some cases). It takes the consumer to complete its journey. So the business--the part I can never seem to balance or keep from taking over--is necessary. My stories need to complete their journeys.

8 - Community matters. More than the words.

9 - I still want to finish the stories. They beg it of me and their little sisters and cousins follow on their coattails asking the same. I hate leaving them unattended . . . incomplete.

10 - But next year will look different. It must. Or I won't be here. I've been 30 years in this industry (only full-time for 11 of those years). And--in all the ways--I'm tired.

With the other of the series rolling along, this was my work to get the final book in order for moving forward . . . essentially the catcher's mitt set up in the form of my initial outline to receive what its preceding book pitches to it!

Missed some of my recording of the last couple of sessions. But it's not the recording . . . it's the words. I will say, however, that seeing the numbers has helped me make decisions and priority changes in my work. It's been a good refocus.

I'm frustrated at my pace. Things always take longer than I want them to when I am working on structured projects like games (as opposed to fiction where I can just freeflow). I know words are words and my overall pace is good or even high. But I'm finding the finished progress to be a struggle, especially at this point in the year.

So, I vastly UNDERestimated the number of projects that would fall into this "General Works In Progress" category. I feel like this is indicative of the reality of clearing this plate before the end of the year. Today, I was abridging an Edgar Rice Burroughs work down from novella to short story. Oof...God bless those of you who do that sort of work. I bit off more than I realized.

Woke up with this long-consumption project finally fully formed in mind. The wordcount was slow for me as I pulled structure in. But I feel SOOOO good. This will finally be off the plate I believe in mere days.

Getting back into the groove and didn't want to miss a day, but the creative juices are still feeling quite slow, so this was primarily outlining work.

After hitting a bit of a wall on my main project, I had to plug into a different work today to just get WORDS. I hope tomorrow, the creativity comes back stronger.

Catching up on my recording. Really wanted to get more words in here, but I had my moments of just staring and thinking . . . don't get me wrong. I know that's good time, too. But i wanted faster finger movement than I got.

Finally getting to recording some of these! I had a weekend of my last tour stop in Minneapolis and those days ended up being no forward progress days. But I did get back to it upon returning . . . just hadn't been recording. This was work on "Of Thread And Thorn," my Shakespeare Shakeup (with production dates and announced season already out!)

Remembered to do it by minutes this time!!! LOL Continuing in the Game book and also using some of the content to create the templates for other games of the company.

That's 8 HOURS, not MINUTES! "Of Thread And Thorn" A Shakespeare Shakeup - enjoyed working in my early writing roots as I finish a play that is being produced next May in my daughter's theater. :-) That said, I have set aside just a few of these long-run writing days and this was, frankly, too much. I used to be able to do sessions like this, but the body was unhappy at day's end.

This was 3 hours (180 Minutes), not 30 minutes. Not something that could be later edited, so some of my first entries were wrongly recorded. Yay for time change! As a morning person, I was looking forward to this. :-) I planned to split my time between projects, today. But I spent it all on one as the ideas were flowing out of the detailed outlines I created yesterday. I also found that, knowing I was going to be writing daily, it put my brain into creative thinking mode all day yesterday from the time I stopped writing until this morning. I hit the keys with more words and ideas than my fingers could keep up with! I want to clarify a reality about my writing pace - something I've had since the early 20Teens. I am not usually a daily writer. I spend a lot of time in deep and detailed outlining, complete with linked research and idea docs, on days that I don't actually write story-progressing words at all. This planning and prep time is what I use to fuel the times I actually am just "writing," (BICHOK!) and it drives my pace because I don't pause when writing, I just . . . type. I spent several full days in deep outlining before NoNo began in order to have that "just typing" time available to me throughout this month. I imagine my average word count (if you work in my hours of research) is probably much lower. My original plan was to do 1 hour on weekend days, but I went for 3 and am stopping only because life awaits. But, I hope the stop when I still have words, another tip I often share for faster writing, will keep the imagination flowing before tomorrow's session.

Did 1 Hour Total - Used Craig's 30-minute timer twice, once per each of two projects. On this, I wrote introductory material to multiple sections of the game book.

Did 1 Hour Total - Used Craig's 30-minute timer twice, once per each of two projects. On this, I finalized the outline before writing into it tomorrow.