How Are We Doing?

For several weeks now, I've been back working on All That's Holy. I started one night, and it was like a string of dominoes someone tipped. I'm through the first 10 chapters of Act 1 and now working on Act II. 

The graph below I created to show my writing progress since January. My goal for the first complete write through is May 1. I don't honestly think I can get through 95,000 words in three months, but hey, I'm up for the challenge. I think. Yeah, I am. Pretty sure.

 Originally, I scheduled it for February but I had so much going on and then I was sick. So that didn't work. Some days I forced myself to write, but I've found if I alternate between writing and some other project, my brain recovers from the writing overload. 

In fact, I started this post on Feb. 14 but as usual, something happened and I had to move along. I've done a bit of crochet, rearranged my desk/computer setup for better access to some things. I've done a bit of sewing, and I've taken some walks at the lake in the cemetery. I've cleaned house, done laundry, dishes, and vacuumed floors. Oh, and the toilets, I did the toilets. And tub. Yeah. 

Writing it down makes me realize I've done more than I thought. And looking at that chart, while it isn't as much as I wanted to do, it is a lot of writing. Remember, I'm doing a rewrite that includes a lot of editing. You wouldn't believe how many words I've taken out and how much stupid text I've had to rewrite. A few times, I had a negative word count. In fact, on one day I had a -3. In January, I wrote 3233 words but ended the month with a net of only 649. Meaning I subtracted over 2000 words. Ugh. 

I don't have a word count goal so the subtraction is meaningless at this point. I don't really check it a lot, although Scrivener had a target tracker you can leave up. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. The record keeping is nice, but outside NaNoWriMo I simply don't track daily counts much. It is fun to see the totals sometimes and they're available if I want them. And sometimes, it is fun to set a goal of so many words and see if you can reach it. The tracker makes that easy.

One thing I realized this week is I've reached the point in this story where there are huge gaping holes. There is also a skewed timeline. I've written this story from the point of view  of three characters and that makes the timeline crucial. They all come together at a certain point and I have to work in alternate POVs to string this thing together. It's hard. I've never done a story like that and juggling one timeline is hard enough. However, I think I can do it. 

I'm going to do it. I said, I'm going to do it. 

I am. 

Really.