MilWordy Progress

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” - George Orwell

What writers hope to achieve

It's been a long while. Sorry about that. I kind of got busy with life and I tend to forget about this place. Oops. As you can see, I'm around and hacking away at my annual Milwordy challenge.

And talk about hacking away at it this year. I'm at a little over 100,000 and half way through the year so nowhere near my normal numbers when it comes to this challenge. I didn't write a single word in February, March, or April. In January I didn't even hit 50K and squeaked by 50K last month. I might get by with over 50K words this month but I'm loosely aiming for it.

Why?

It's not for lack of ideas or content. I've got three ongoing series in Avalora School of Magic, The Interviewer, and The World of Ambrosia. I have an ideas list with around 70 story ideas ranging from short to novel and most of them fleshed out to the point where I can pick it up and start going. If you're wondering why I haven't been writing, well I don't know for sure. It's why I'm writing this after all as an introspective journal like entry.

I suppose my lack of writing could be simple burn out. I've been doing Milwordy and NaNo events since 2013. That's five full years of pressing myself to hit at least 80,000 words a month writing solely in the evenings and on weekends.

I've often said how doing the MilWordy challenge takes away from my social life and I'm not kidding. For me to hit 80,000 words by writing weekends and assuming there are eight weekends in a month, I need every day to be a 10,000 word day. Breaking that down, I would need 2,000 words an hour for five hours.

It doesn't seem like much (or it might)and really it never has been a lot for me. My average is 2,000 words an hour, sometimes more and sometimes less. I've had nights where I can hit the 10,000 in four hours and I've had days where I get 15,000 or more words.

But between work keeping me up until two am then sleeping till noon and wanting to go out to do something, I'm left with much less than 10 hours a weekend I feel like writing. I want to do fixes around the house and work on my garden. I want to watch movies on Netflix and catch up on shows I've been wanting to see since forever and a day ago.

Here's the kicker: I haven't felt like writing. There are times I plop myself down in front of the computer and don't put a word to page. These have become more frequent as of late and writing became a sort of chore.

Don't get me wrong, I like what I've produced and do want to continue working on everything. I think I'm plain tired. I've worked with Avalora for two years now which is one of my longest projects to date. Avalora is going to turn out to be the biggest too and my creative batteries needed re-charging. This brings me to my next point.

Eventually there will be a new link on this blog which will basically be a place for me to post some of my other creative endeavours. I'm mainly a writer so don't mistake this for me "retiring" from writing. I will never retire so long as I take breath.

But, I paint in acrylics, oils, and digitally, I make jewellery, and most recently I've started to repaint and reimage dolls. I've dabbled in pastels, charcoal, colored pencils, and water colors. As a child I took ceramics which essentially meant I got a white sculpture (Usually of a dragon) and got to paint it. I've started making pipe cleaner animals at work and my brain loves looking at something to figure out "hm, how can I re-create this?"

Sometimes my brain needs a break from putting words on page and I have to do something else or I'm lost. I have to give my brain the challenge of figuring out something new or I wander off into doing nothing. It helps I've taken until June 20th off for a kind of stress leave. I need a break from life every few years or I tend to snap which is never good for anyone involved.

So, this week is going to be about doing some painting around the house, working on my back garden, repainting some dolls, sleeping, and working on the new blog page. I might write a bit, I might not and that's okay. At one point I'll freak out because I'm nowhere close to MilWordy but I've got a week off in November so I'm not too concerned.

Until next time: comments and questions welcome. Keep a look out for the new page too. I can't promise a date because gosh knows I rarely keep a deadline and sometimes forget about this blog but I will get it going.