The Dream

“Sometimes life is about risking everything for a dream that no one but you can see.”

I came across this quote some time ago. I’m not sure who said it or really how I came to find it, but it resonated with me. Maybe because I have this crazy dream where I am going to become a published author and share my little world with everyone. But it’s scary as hell. Because first, one must pull a story from the depths of one’s soul, and secondly, because every force in the world seems to be working against following that dream and people can’t seem to understand why you would want to quit your well paying job to pursue this. I mean, I get it. I wonder myself. But I did it. And I’m still not sure if I’m better off. If nothing else, I’m committed, or should be.

The Best Laid Plans

I’ve been struggling to get rid of this cold for over a week now. It likes to come and go at the least opportune times. It’ll appear when I decide I want to get a bunch of stuff done, when I decide I want to work out again, or it’ll exhaust me suddenly when I’m trying to stay up. That’s what happened last night. I was doing pretty alright, I was getting stuff done, and suddenly, it was time to fall asleep immediately. I didn’t edit my vlog last night because I was just too tired all of a sudden. I didn’t even realize I didn’t blog until I woke up this morning. Whoops! I had planned on it. I knew what I was going to write about. Alas! I’m up now, though, and still feeling a little sick, but I am ready to face the day, and I have some awesome things I want to do.

As you might know if you read my last post, I am very near the end of my first revision of book two, which is crazy because my goal was to finish it by the end of next month. Last night, I actually got to the final chapter. I even started to write it, and was fully intending to finish it, but then I stopped being able to function very well, so I figured it was best to step away and finish up when I felt better. I think it was a good thing, though, because there’s been a few things right at the end of the book that have been bothering me a bit, and while I was laying in bed, I think I figured some of it out. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I’m wondering if I want to expand the book a little further. There’s always been a bit of a nebulous zone between book two and three, and I’ll have to look at what’s next to see if I want to pull it back for the end of book two.

If you remember when I was first writing this series, I thought book one was going to be a lot longer than it actually is. Turns out I was writing three books at the same time. The breakdown was about 80k of book one, and 65k of book two. I knew I had kept going beyond that, so I just went to check what I have for book three, you know, to see if it’s feasible to pull some of the beginning of that book to the end of book two. Well, I surprised myself. I have 84k of book three written already, and based on where I am and its length, I think it’s a good idea to pull some of the content for the end of book two. So I guess I’m not almost done. I’m also really surprised at how much of book three I already have written. I thought it was 20k, max.

Alright, I now have more work to do than I planned, and I’m starting the day with a bit of a headache, so I’m going to go, and hopefully manage to be productive.

The End Is Near

At the beginning of this month, I was really struggling with revising my book. I set a very low word count at only two thousand words a day, and that was still hard. To put it into perspective, when I set my goal for this revision of book one, I set it at four thousand words a day. From the start, though, I knew this book was going to be a more of a struggle. I didn’t realize that it would be so much of one that I would fail at hitting my word count for half of the first two weeks of the month. I really started to think that I wasn’t going to hit my goal of finishing this revision by the end of April. A goal that is crucial to getting the book fully edited and off to my beta readers before I go off the grid for two months this summer. Everything has to line up for this to happen, and midway through the month, it wasn’t going well.

And then everything changed. I’ve talked about it a lot lately, but I had a banner week last week. I wrote more in that week than I had the previous two. Which is ridiculous, but it does make sense because the latter half of the book was more developed. After last week, I felt better about hitting my goal of finishing by the end of April, and by extension, better about hitting the other goals. I was pretty sure it would be impossible to keep up that pace going forward, though. I had three days over six thousand last week. That’s not a super sustainable pace, generally. But then this week started and I spent the majority of the day at my computer. I woke up and rolled out of bed and into my desk chair. I wrote two thousand words before I even remembered that I needed to do human things like eat. I took breaks, but I kept coming back, and by the end of the day, I topped out at eleven thousand words. It’s still not quite my record, though it was close, and it made me think that I might be able to get this draft finished a little sooner than I thought.

Today was another day off and I’ve been pretty motivated. Presently, just before 10pm, I’ve written just shy of eight thousand words. Another impressive day. Looking at the original draft, I only have seven thousand words left before I hit the end of the book. I think you can see what’s happening. I think I’m going to finish this book revision by the end of this month; a full month ahead of schedule. It’s crazy how quickly things turned around for me, and how I’ve been able to keep my foot on the pedal for so long. I think I’ll be able to finish strong now, because the end is in striking distance, but I also think I’m going to take a week off once I finish. Which I think is a really good thing, because I was afraid that I wasn’t going to have any downtime between this revision and the next one. For the later revisions, I don’t need much time in between, but the first revision is always the worst, and it’s good to step away for a little bit. Plus, the downtime will give me a chance to get back to my neglected querying.

All in all, I think the most important thing through all of this is that I kept going, even when it was hard, and maybe even more importantly, is that I keep falling back in love with my story again and again.

Wake Up. Write.

I’m still struggling to get over the cold that took me out for a few days about a week ago, and so today I had a nice sleep in. Well, I woke up and managed to get back to sleep for a bit, and when that failed, I gave up and just had a lie in, which I quite enjoyed. Usually when I wake up in the morning, once I start moving, the first thing I do is go grab something for breakfast. Today, that didn’t happen. I didn’t even get dressed before I rolled over to my computer and started writing. I wrote until I was almost passing out at my desk last night, which is the only reason I stopped, so obviously it would be the first thing I wanted to do this morning. I sat down, plugged into my music, and started where I left off. It wasn’t long before I hit my 2,000 words for the day, sometime before noon. Awesome.

It was about that time that I remembered I’m a human and have needs, like eating. Honestly, it happens a lot where I get so into writing that I forget basics like that. I try to keep snacks around my writing space, just in case, and it sometimes helps, but at other times has the opposite affect and I just snack all day, still leaving myself hungry for real food. Today, I actually got up and made some food, and now, here I am, ready to get back into the day.

Some very exciting things have happened and are going to happen today. First of all, with my morning writing session, I surpassed the overall word count of the first draft, which is great. I still have around thirty pages of the first draft to get through, and I think I’m actually on a good pace to get to where I want to be. Secondly, I am one page away from surpassing the overall length of the first draft. It feels so great to be hitting these milestone, especially after how much I struggled at the beginning.

That’s not to say there aren’t still some struggles, but I’m taking them in stride now. There’s still a few areas that I’ve kind of left for myself to fix in subsequent edits, and there’s a few characters without last names, or with names I’m not completely happy with. Those are pretty minor though, and something I’ll definitely deal with on my next few edits. When I went through book one on the third and fourth revisions, I had a notebook at my side, and I found that taking notes made a difference. The fifth review was a pretty intensive review, and then I think I had some feedback before the sixth review, and that’s mainly what I focused on. I honestly couldn’t tell you how many revisions I did of the first book, but it’s easily in the double digits. I’m sure I could do a few more, as well, but I think I could always find something I wasn’t 100% on. At least for now, I think it’s good that I’ve stepped away from that. However, I know that I have the same thing to look forward to for book two. I know I’ve called this draft, draft 1.5, but now that I’ve gotten into it a little more, I almost feel like I can call it the second draft. Still, I think I have at least three more revisions before I’ll feel comfortable sending it off to people to get feedback. I have a plan, though. I want to get this draft done by the end of April at the latest. With the progress I made over the last week, I think it’s very likely that I will, and that’s a load off, because I was stressed about my overly ambitious timeline. From there, I’m hoping to get the next three revisions done in the following two months so I can get the books sent off by the end of June. That’s my goal, and at this moment, I’m very optimistic about it, but it also means that I should get back to my writing.

This Week

I know I’ve been talking about it for days, but this week has been pretty awesome for a few different reasons. First off, it’s the first weekend I’ve had off in ages. Okay, so that’s not the most exciting thing, but it’s been a long time since that has happened, and I’m not even sure what to do with myself. Maybe that’s a lie. I know what to do. I must write.

This week has been crazy for writing. I think that’s the thing I’m most excited about. It’s not even that I’m outputting a bunch of words, it’s that I’m making a ton of progress on the story. As I’ve mentioned before, I had a very rough first draft, which needed a fair amount of work. I put a ton of work into the first half over the first two weeks of this month, and while I know it’s not exactly where I want it to be, it’s getting there. I’ll be a few more edits before I’m super happy with it, but the entire book is going to need that. On this revision though, I felt like I was starting the beginning of the book at a zero, where as the latter half was maybe a five.

Speaking of, at the beginning of this week, I got to the meat of the story; the parts that I had fleshed out pretty well in the first draft. Not only was it great because I felt like I was slogging away for the first two weeks of the month, but it also meant I started to make meaningful progress. I didn’t know it at the time, but Sunday was a huge turning point for me in my attitude toward my book. I think it came at the perfect time, too, because I have had a banner week for progress. I’m well into the story now and probably around the halfway point, which is nice. I’ve also written over 36k this week, and that’s impressive. I think it’s mostly because I am loving the story again.

This series spans five books, so it can get a little complex at times as I try to keep everything together. Is this a little ambitious for a first project? Probably. Did I know it was five books when I started? Nope. But this is why I’ve been working so hard to finish book two. I want to prove that I can do it, and that I’m not going to abandon the series after one or two books. For me, it’s really important to do that. Also, I want to see where the story goes next. I mean, I have the whole series planned out, so it’s not like it’s going to be a surprise, but I haven’t written it yet, so I don’t have every single word planned out, and it’s those little moments in between that make a story a story. So I’m really excited about that.

Then, last, but not least, is this blog. I’ve been very consistent this month with posting, although I have completely given up on pre-scheduled posts and posting around the same time each day (oops). Still, I have been writing a post every day, even if it’s 11:30pm, and I know I’m racing the clock. I really enjoy it, and I feel like it’s helping me stay motivated. It’s also really cool to see my audience, and the interactions with my blog grow each month. Last month I was excited because I beat the previous month’s views, and then at the beginning of this month, I beat the previous years’ total views, which is a little crazy. This month, I’ve surpassed last month’s views and I think a little earlier. That’s actually a bit of a lie. I’m currently tied with it, but considering I have another full week to go, I think I’ll make it.

Once I surpassed last years’ views, I counted that as a win. This is a goal that I feel I don’t need to actively focus on as much. It’s great to see the growth, 100%, and I love to see people engaging with my blog, but I feel so accomplished that I did in, just over, two months what took me twelve to do the year before. This almost sounds like it means I don’t care if my blog grows anymore, and I don’t think I even need to post anymore. But that’s not the case. Instead, I’ve removed the quantifiable goal, and now I can just have fun. But also, I would love it if my little blog kept growing a little each month.

To sum up, I’m so excited about where I am with my book right now, that I’m exhausted and should go to sleep, but am contemplating writing more, AND I just want to keep sharing my adventure with anyone who will listen.

Thanks for being here!

All The Words

I’ve had a very interesting month with my writing progress. It started out pretty normally, and while I didn’t hit my goal every day of the first week, I still hit it a fair amount. It was also when I was working too much on my fanfic, and so, looking at my calendar, I actually wrote a fair amount. 21,935 to be exact, which is nothing to scoff at. But of those, only 9,719 were of my actual story. I had a problem. The next week, I started off strong and didn’t work on my fanfic at all. But I did have a few rough days and got sick. My total for the week was 10,446. A little better than the week before, but not great, and slightly off pace from where I wanted to be. This week had been better. I feel off the pretend “no fanfic” rule, and wrote 152 words on it. But then, I don’t know what happened with my actual story. It was like something finally clicked, and after getting through the parts I was struggling with, I flew. It’s Friday nigh, I’ve just stopped writing for the day, and I decided to check what my word output has been for the week, because I know it’s high. It’s 30,485 words. If you don’t count my words for my fanfic, I wrote more in this week than for the rest of the month. If you do count my fanfic, I’m less than 2,000 words away from hitting the overall word count. Which is kind of insane. I’ve written almost 65k this month, and I still have another week left. I’ve written 80k in a month before, so we’re not quite there yet, but we’re really close.

I know that at the end of the day, word counts don’t mean much. It doesn’t matter if your book is longer or shorter than someone else’s, it just matters that it’s a good story. The only reason that I set these arbitrary word count goals is so that I have something to work toward. It keeps me motivated. I don’t think I would be as successful if I didn’t have a minimum word count that I’ve pledged to hit every day. Sure, some days I would still write all the words, but other days, I would probably find an excuse to just not. I have a ballpark number of where I think this book is going to land when it’s finished, based on book one, and what needs to happen in this book, but if it’s shorter, or longer than I was aiming for, I’m not going to push myself to hit that word count, just because. No, at the end of the day, it’s just a number for me to hit, or not.

As I’ve been putting so much into my story lately, I’ve kind of been wandering when it’s going to end. Like, when am I going to burn out, or just get sick of it. But, I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon, because I was writing a very boring scene where nothing exciting happened, and this incredible feeling of joy came over me, and I realized how happy I was to be working on my story. There’s nothing I’d rather be doing. In fact, it was a bit of a struggle for me to stop writing to get this post up, and then eventually go to sleep, because it’s getting late. That being said, I am kind of tired, so I think I’m going to call it here.

Keeping My Head Up

No matter what you’re doing, I think it’s so important to try to stay positive. This is why I try to glean any silver lining out of negative situations. If it’s been raining for months, I remind myself that everything will be green in the spring, and maybe my province won’t burn as much in the summer. If something falls through, I try to figure out why it makes the most sense that it didn’t work out at the time. I do it to my friends too, when they tell me about something negative in their life, and I’m surprised they haven’t gotten mad at me for it yet, especially as it’s become second nature to do, now. I don’t even have to actively make the decision to find the good in the bad, I just do. Which is great.

I’m an optimist, and I really like that about myself. I think it’s especially helpful now that I’ve entered the query phase (and yes, I need to send more off, I know, stop judging me!). I’ve got a few form rejections, a few that have timed out, and then a few more that I’m essentially just waiting to time out. That could be really crappy. For sure, sometimes the thought that I’ll never get published creeps into my head, and I don’t like that.

Here’s the thing. I full-heartedly believe that I will get published one day and that people will enjoy reading my stories. It’s because these stories are stories I would have loved to read when I was younger. But also because they’re stories I would read now. If someone handed me this book, I would be invested in it, and want to know where it went next. I’m writing it, and I still get a little too invested in the story and what’s happening next. EVEN THOUGH I KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. BECAUSE I’M WRITING IT. Seriously, though, I’ve been reading stuff I wrote, and I start to get stressed out and caught up in the story, because I’m afraid something bad is going to happen, and then I start to read it really fast, because I need to see what happens. That’s usually about the time, as I’m stumbling over the words in my effort to read so quickly, that I remember I wrote it. And then I stop myself, I remind myself what happens, and calm down a little bit so I can get back to editing my story.

It’s moments like these that help me from getting discouraged on my writing journey. I mentioned the other day about how I find it so great to see an artist breakdown on stage, while singing a song live. They’ve probably sang it a million times, so you would think they’re numb, and it wouldn’t affect them anymore. But I think it’s great that their own art can still evoke such a strong emotion. I feel so lucky that I can still get so excited about my stories on the second, third, fifth, or whatever run through, that I want to keep reading. The fact that I don’t hate my stories after so many edits, and spending so much time with them, makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I can do this forever, which is a good thing, because I have a LOT of stories I want to tell.

Earlier today, I surpassed the 50,000 word mark on book two, which I think it pretty impressive. I would guess I’m about halfway through at this point. However, I think the best part of the day was when I remembered something that was coming up and suddenly said “oooOOOOoooooOOOooOOooo!!!” because I was so excited about it. I honestly can’t wait to share my stories with more people, and I know it’s going to happen. That’s part of what keeps me going and in such high spirits.

Why My Progress Sometimes Slows

When I’m writing this blog, I try to celebrate the victories, no matter how big or small they are, because I think it’s important. This is why I’ve been super happy to share how much I’ve written in the past few days. In three days I wrote just under 17k, which is pretty impressive. Part of how I’ve been so successful is because I’ve taken the time to sit down and write, but also because I’m working on draft 1.5, and I’ve gotten to a point where I can take a lot from the first draft. I would guess that the majority of the first 15k words on this draft was all new, and then a large part of the following 5-10k required a lot of tweaking. Now that I’ve gotten into the meat of the first draft, though, things have been going a lot quicker. I’m still making tweaks here and there, but it’s not like before where I either had to write something entirely new, or completely change what was already written.

Even when I’m writing a first draft, I try to be as quick as I can, because I think it’s important to get the story down so you can edit it later. Obviously I try to do my best job the first time, but I don’t beat myself up if something doesn’t quite work. I also don’t let myself get caught up on something for too long. Because I know I’m always going to come back through, I will sometimes skip certain things. For example, I had a character that didn’t have a last name when I started writing the first draft of book two. Instead of sitting there and waiting for something to come to me, I would just put “________” where the last name was supposed to go. I do that with places as well. It’s not worth getting caught up on something that is easy to add later, so long as you make it apparent.

I don’t just do this with names and places, though, sometimes I struggle with a particular scene, or chapter. Again, instead of allowing myself to get caught up in it, I try to write out as much detail as I can, for what I want to say, and then move on. For this, I usually make it its own paragraph, and I use all caps, because that way I can’t miss it. I find that when I go back later, it’s a lot easier. Maybe that’s because something changed since I was there, and now it’s not a struggle, or it could just be because I have a fresh set of eyes. The key, which I have discovered after doing this a fair amount, is to put in as much detail as you can.

Say your character is in a foot chase. You don’t want to just put INSERT FOOT CHASE HERE. That’s not helpful AT ALL. Instead, I would put something like: MAIN CHARACTER IS RUNNING FROM ARCH ENEMY THROUGH ALLEYS. VERY DARK AND SCARY. WET PAVEMENT. DUMPSTERS. CHARACTER IS LOST AND GETTING TIRED. ENEMY IS GAINING. Yeah, something like that. I put whatever I need to fill in that space but can’t put in the right words at that moment.

Sometimes, though, I lean more toward the “INSERT FOOT CHASE HERE”, which just kills me later on. Why would I do that to myself? I wish I could say that it’s something I’ve started to fade out, but somehow, I don’t think so. I think it’s because I’m just so uninspired sometimes, that all I can get is the absolute minimum. As you might imagine, this slows me down. And I won’t leave a block like this the second time I come across it. By the time I finish draft two (or 1.5), my hope is to have all the bones of the story in place. That means I have to deal with this blocks. I’ve come across a few good ones, including one where I just wrote “CHAPTER 11-13??? PUT IN PART WHERE SHE …” I actually wrote a fair amount in that section, but the fact that I didn’t even bother to write a few chapters was kind of mean,

Today, though, I think I found the one that takes the cake, at least so far. I was minding my own business, writing away, and I scrolled down in the first draft, and what do I see, but this: BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, EAT LUNCH. Thank you, past me. You are so helpful there. Didn’t describe what the place looked like, who was there, what they ate. Nothing. It’s kind of rude.

Honestly, though, I think it’s kind of funny. But, I hate it in the moment. When I come across something like that, especially when I’m in a groove, it’s a little frustrating. But like I said above, I’ll likely never stop doing it. Maybe I’ll get better, but no promises.

Buddy System

Last week, when I was in my rut, I was looking for ways to motivate myself. Usually if I go to a coffee shop, or something, I can manage to get something done. Unfortunately, I didn’t even really want to do that. So I reached out to a friend. She’s studying nursing, and even though I’m writing a book, we’ve had success working together before. We tried to arrange something for last week, but it didn’t work. I think it’s safe to say that I’m out of my rut now, but it still doesn’t hurt to have that extra motivation.

Tonight, we made plans and got together at a coffee shop. It had been a while since we saw each other, so there was some socializing, but we both definitely got work done. It’s kind of nice, because you’re not alone and can have a quick chat whenever, but there’s also that second person that’s trying to get stuff done, and who is motivating you to do the same. I’m not sure how many words I wrote while we were out, but I made some good progress, and found some issues in the original draft. But that’s why I’m doing this.

I think having a study/writing buddy is a great tool if you are struggling to write. It’s one more person to hold you accountable, and who probably won’t judge you. But I think it’s also important to find the right buddy. If they just want to chat the entire time, it’s probably not going to work. Conversely, if they don’t want to talk at all, you might as well be working alone. Then, of course, there’s the dynamic where you are working hard, and you look over, and they are doing nothing. Honestly, it drives me nuts when I am working really hard and getting so much done, and they are on their social media. And it shouldn’t bother me, because it doesn’t affect me, but I just want them to be getting a ton of stuff done, too

Now, however, I’m getting to the most exciting part. I wrote a ton yesterday, as you might have seen if you read my blog, but today, I wrote even more. Which is INSANE! Yesterday I hit a new high score with 6,681 words, which was fantastic, especially with how last week went. Today, I don’t know how I did it, because I worked, but I wrote a total of 7,022 words. Actually, I kind of know how I did it. I’m super competitive with myself, that’s why tracking my daily word count on a board that I can see is super helpful. When I hit 5k today, I was already thinking that maybe I could hit a new high score. At that point, it was still 1,600 words away. That’s almost my daily goal! I have problems. But I’m feeling pretty good, all things considered. My hands hurt a bit, not going to lie, but I’m really enjoying the story at this point and can’t wait to get back into it. If I didn’t have to work tomorrow, chances are I would keep working on it.

Out of the Rut

Last week was rough for me. I felt like I was struggling to write, and then at the end of it all, I caught a cold, which put me in bed for a day, and obviously cut into any chance of writing, or getting anything done. Also, I kind of felt like everything was low key falling apart as I pushed to write, instead of rebuilding the foundation that helps me write.

Yesterday I spent some time getting all my ducks in a row, and it made a difference. I had a 3,000 word output. It wasn’t the best I’ve had this month, but it wasn’t anything to scoff at, especially considering the struggle of the week before. Today, I was off from my real job. On days when I don’t work, I tend to get a lot more done. It’s generally not because I’m more focused or anything, it’s just because I have more time. I probably procrastinate just as much as I do on days when I work, but there’s more time kicking around that I can do that. I’m still overcoming a little bit of that cold, so I’m trying to take it easy.

I slept until 11 o’clock this morning, and I was okay with it. It doesn’t help that I’ve been going to sleep a little later than usual lately, but my body still probably needed it. I then proceeded to do nothing for a solid hour, before I decided I should eat lunch and start my day. Today, I decided that the best thing to do was to head to a coffee shop to get some work done. I managed to hit my 2k word count for the day in just an hour. In case you were wondering, I can average about 2,000 words an hour when I’m on a roll. That’s why I know my daily goal isn’t insane. The problem is when I’m struggling. Then, I’m lucky to hit five hundred words in three hours. Today has been a good day, though. After putting in my time at the coffee shop, I came home, did a ton of cleaning, and then sat down to write some more. Before dinner, I had added another thousand words. Since dinner, I’ve added two thousand more. I just did the math, and I’ve written about a hundred more words in two days than I wrote all of last month.

This tells me two things. One, if you’re in a rut and you feel like you’ll never get out of it, just keep pushing. Eventually the rut will end, and even if you didn’t make a lot of progress during it, you still have something to show. Secondly, I need a tidy space to work in. I need to take those few minutes every day to make my bed and pick up anything on the floor. I forgot that last week, and instead of dealing with those simple things, I tried to work around them. It didn’t work so well.

I’m feeling pretty jazzed about this week. I have a study/writing date set up with a friend tomorrow, and I’m thinking I’ll be just as productive. Unless we decide to talk. That sometimes happens, too. We haven’t seen each other for a few months, so our attempt could be a bust. But we’ll see. Overall, I’m feeling great about this month, which is surprising to me as I write this. All month, I’ve felt like I’ve been struggling and never hitting my goals. However, a few solid days have helped counteract the bad writing days, and I’m almost at my goal for the month, which is crazy! I’m actually less than 9,000 words away from my goal, and I have a full thirteen days to hit it. That makes me feel good. I’ll definitely get there and I have a chance to get a head start on April’s goals, which is important, because the faster I get the book written, the sooner I get to start revising it.

Getting Back On Track

If anyone were to ask me, I would say that, for the most part, I’ve been killing 2019 and my goals for it. Sure, it’s taken a few swings back at me, and it’s always good to have a worthy adversary, but overall, I think it’s been pretty alright. That being said, for the last week or so, I have been struggling. And I’m not exactly sure why. It could be because I’ve been trying to write book two, and struggling a little. It could also be because I kind of let everything else fall apart.

I’m a creature of habit. I’ve mentioned it here a million times before. Over the last week or so, my habit has fallen by the wayside. My room degraded into a disaster zone, and then I got sick, which made things SO MUCH WORSE. Instead of stopping what I was doing and tidying everything up to give myself a sanctuary, or close to, to work in, I just kept pushing forward, letting everything pile up around me.

Okay, I’m making it sound like I became a hoarder house or something. It wasn’t nearly that bad. It was an unmade bed, two loads of unfolded laundry, some dirty laundry on the floor, and a bit of a mess on my desk. It was, however, enough to throw me off. And while maybe that wasn’t it alone, it definitely wasn’t helping things.

Today, I took the time to stop, write a list (another thing I stopped doing for a while there), and then clean everything. I still have to put my clothes away, because it’s the thing I dislike the most, but at least everything is folded and ready to go when I get to it. It’s also sunny today, which is a nice change from the LONG winter we’ve been going through. So hopefully, I’m getting back on track now, and the word counts will start increasing like crazy, and I’ll get back into querying.