Every once in awhile (or about once a week) writers get down and wonder if we’ve really done anything. We haven’t finished that book, and there’s five unfinished stories, the old books haven’t been rewritten, the new stuff hasn’t been edited. And it goes on and on.
Why do we do this? Focus on the negative, what hasn’t been done and still needs to be? Because we evolved that way. If you paid more attention to the fact that you caught a fish and got to eat than to the saber-tooth tiger behind you, you got chomped… and he’d eat your fish for desert. But sometimes you have to stop and realize all you’ve accomplished. So that’s what we’re going to do.
List what you’ve gotten done writing-wise the past year. I started writing in August 9 years ago, and then when I started again last year after recovering from law school, I got going in August again, so I count my new writing year as beginning around now. The past year I’ve written:
5 Evie Jones shorts from 5 to 15K words (about 40K total)
2 Millie Lehman shorts around 6K each;
The rest of an Ariana Ryder short, about 2K;
The Gods Defense Novel, 80K after the original novella (which was written about five years ago).
Edited a few older stories and all of these and sent all but the most recently finished to my writing group/beta readers.
Sent about 15 stories to magazines and contests
Started the second and fourth books in The Gods reality, (22K and 23K words).
So adding all them up, I’ve written about 179K words the past year, edited all of them, did some edits and rewrites on a few more stories from before law school, submitted them places, and decided to Indie Publish.
I’d say that’s a pretty damn productive year.
Your turn. List your writing accomplishments the past year. I think you’ll be surprised by how much you’ve gotten done.
Happy Writing 🙂
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