September was better than August. A lot better. I managed to actually sit down and do some work again, pounding out close to 19 000 words.
For a while I felt on a roll. Then I had the week from hell…
Fiction
Last month I wrote 10 800 new words of fiction, which is 292 % of the previous month’s total and 145 % of my 1 year running monthly average. I completed 2 stories for a total of 1 800 words, which is 64 % of the previous month’s total and 46 % of my 1 year average. All in all, the month was slightly above average.
I submitted 18 times and got 16 rejections (if you’re wondering how that adds up: some of these are rejections for submissions from previous months). I also sold no stories, had 1 story published, and I have 24 stories currently submitted and waiting for a response.
Since I started keeping track in late 2014 I’ve written 147 230 words of fiction.
September started slow, but picked up pace as it went along. I started writing longer blog posts and my use of The Most Dangerous Writing App made my word count explode. And then I ran into the last week when almost all of my rejections accumulated all at once.
Bleh.
It crushed my self-worth and will to write like King Kong climbing a 10″ model of the Eiffel Tower.
Bleh indeed. Let’s hope I pick myself up and get back in the saddle during October.
Non-fiction
Last month I wrote 8 150 new words, which is infinitely more % of the previous month’s total and 161 % of my 1 year running monthly average. I finished 4 new blog posts for a total of 9 250 words, which is infinitely more % of the previous month’s total and 176 % of my 1 year running monthly average.. That makes the month really good. I also got 3 new subscribers to my email list.
Since I started keeping track in late 2014, I’ve written 129 030 words of non-fiction.
This month went really good (knock on wood). I got into the swing of things and started writing long, content heavy posts.
A lot of that comes from me using a brainstorm-and-cluster approach that I read about in Jim Denney’s “Writing in Overdrive” (which I’ll probably review, it’s pretty good). This enabled me to come to the core of what I wanted to write about, and structure it in a way that made writing easier.
Game Design
Last month I created 0 new prototypes, updated 0 prototype and ran 2 playtests. I played 4 games and my most liked game has been Scythe, which I played 1 time.
Haven’t spent a lot of time playing games, although I want to. But the real world takes precedence. Although the two playtests I ran did turn out well, and I got some great feedback.
