In an effort to find the story a little better, I decided to try something new. Instead of working on the same section, filling in page after page of background and “world building,” I wrote what I hope is the start of the thread that gets my protagonist heading onward on his journey. We’ll see if anything comes to pass over the next few days.

It must have worked, because I wrote a lot more than I was expecting. I was dreading writing about the same old boring stuff that I have been for the past few days and was almost going to not write anything. I didn’t want to keep chasing a story that was probably never going to come unless I got closer to it in my timeline, so that’s what I did. There’s still a lot to do in what is now the vacant middle, including some tragic, character-building stuff that will be a major part of my “hero’s journey,” but I’m a little more excited to see what happens next, and if I can find something for him to do in the meantime.

On with the stats:

DAILY STATS:
Total words written: 28,499 (+1,243 from yesterday)
Daily average: 750 (up from 737)
Approximate days to end goal: 175+
Approximate days to next reveal: 28+
#RobertWritesABook #ThatDamnNote

Note: I’ve decided that I’m not going to count weekends anymore unless I actually do some writing, so the averages below reflect that. However, I’ll still count weekdays that I don’t write as a “zero” for the day, because I do most of my writing during the week.

Wrote some more today, not as much as the previous two days, but still a positive number. I wasn’t going to write anything since I’ve been feeling less than 100% since yesterday, but I still managed to get some words down, which is a success in my book.

I’m still trying to find something for this book to be. I think I’ve done enough “world building” – which is pretty easy when you are writing in a version of the actual past – but I don’t yet know what my people are going to do. I’ve had a couple of people ask me what genre my book was and I still don’t know. Shouldn’t I know that by now? I guess not knowing makes it easier to avoid writing myself into a corner, but it’s still frustrating. I’m hoping that by the time I reach the next “milestone” – about 50,000 words or so – I’ll have an idea, but I guess it all remains to be seen.

On with the stats:

DAILY STATS:
Total words written: 27,256 (+836 from 7/6)
Daily average: 737 (up from 734)
Approximate days to end goal: 180+
Approximate days to next reveal: 30+
#RobertWritesABook #JustKeepWriting

Second consecutive day over 1,000 words!

I’m still unsure if the entire section that I’m working on will even end up in this book as is, or even in part. I could easily see the “real” story part of this taking up the bulk of my expected goal, with only about half of what I’ve already written making the final cut. I guess it all depends on what the actual story ends up being, which is something that I am still pretty far away from finding. Any suggestions for what to have my protagonist do would be welcome; you can get a short introduction to him here.

On with the stats:

DAILY STATS:
Total words written: 26,420 (+1,197 from 7/5)
Daily average: 734 (up from 721)
Approximate days to end goal: 182+
Approximate days to next reveal: 32+
#RobertWritesABook #JustKeepWriting

I took some time off from the book for the holiday, as well as general writer’s block that I was experiencing. That said, I just need to open it up and write even on the days that I don’t feel like writing, because I manged to have my best day based on raw output since the middle of June. I honestly don’t know if everything I wrote today will show up in the final project, or if it will remain where it is if it does, but it was nice to get something down again.

On with the stats:

DAILY STATS:
Total words written: 25,223 (+1,384 from 6/29)
Daily average: 721 (down from 865) (still over 1,500 on days that I actually write something though)
Approximate days to end goal: 187+
Approximate days to next reveal: 34+
#RobertWritesABook #RearDetachmentFun