Finally got round to watching The Mandalorian today. This after sleeping in until 2pm. I also got an air fryer today, so that’s pretty darn cool. Chill day, and while this month was slow on writing, I can be proud I matched September’s total. I can try and knock it out of the park as this year draws to a close. Here’s hoping even with a second lockdown no nasty suprises emerge.

I keep putting the date wrong on these posts, correcting them the next day I sit down to write one and then putting the wrong one again. It’s a symptom of how out of sorts I am in general, but what I forgot to mention last night was I hit target with an additional 600 words, so with today in the bag, I’ll have matched September’s wordcount. That’s still doing in 31 days what I managed in 30 but still, it’s something. I hope November will be better.

Also Taco Bell is, not great.

One of these days you’ll see me make a blog post in the middle of the day again. That was not today. In a way, that’s because I had a productive non-writing day, and spent a little time with mum and my step dad in the evening. It was a good day, but writing got shunted to the end. It’s not a big deal, though I do wish I could get an early night soon. Not happening in the short term though, and the ship has sailed tonight. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m stable, but all too aware that I’m not where I want to or need to be. And that goes beyond late nights.

I adore my flat. This is far more than just a rented accommodation to me. It’s the first place I’ve ever afforded by myself with no outside help, and not a cheap one either, two bedrooms meaning I can have this little office to get away from the distractions. I adore it, and wish with all my heart that at the end of my tenancy here I could straight up make an offer to buy it. And well, that will never happen. I could afford the repayment rate, right now in fact, but I’d have no chance of securing the mortgage without a guarantor, which isn’t an option. It’s a harsh truth but, here goes: unless by some miracle my writing takes off, I will never be able to buy this flat.

I do not have the energy right now for that to ignite a true fire inside or underneath me, but I need it to. Sue, 99% of books fail and that assumes you even get a publisher, which assumes you even get an agent if we’re being realists here. The odds I will ever make some income from my work are miniscule. But I have to. I have to try and make some money from my skills or one day I’ll be handing over the keys to someone else, and a little part of me will die that day. I don’t know if that’s me being childish, or if it’s arrogant to think that a guy on £19k a year should ever be given the chance to buy a flat. I’m inclined to think it’s not, for the record, property prices are the greatest scam of our times. But if I want to hold onto this, I’m going to need some kind of miracle. If I am good enough as a writer to earn money then I still need one, because plenty of talented writers never make a penny.

There’s a flame inside, but under the torrential winds that this year mustered and against the dark lonely inside of my heart, it’s burning dim. I do think though, that it is still lit, still shimmering defiant against the night. 764 days ago I couldn’t write on a consistent basis. 631 days ago I couldn’t bring myself to post my thoughts and experiences online like this. 368 days ago the idea of writing a minimum number of words a day on one project still lay beyond reach, and 38 days ago, I still didn’t have a model to edit every single day, to make my stories the best they could be. If all that sticks, and I believe it will, then my next challenge has to be breaking out. If I want to keep this life even as the world crumbles to ash, I am going to have to beat those odds.

I hope there’s still time.

Yesterday I did achieve another milestone I don’t think I mentioned: I rowed for the first time in eight days. That was, a mistake. My foot is in agony right now and I’m trying to ignore the ‘shifting’ feelings inside of it. That about sums up where my head is at right now. Target is still coming out like sludge, and I sat down to give it my full focus at 5pm. That’s just not good enough, it shouldn’t take more than 90 minutes at worst; at my best it takes less than a third of that to knock out a thousand words. So yeah, I hate working from home. It sucks that I don’t see a viable way to go back into the office on this foot on Monday though.

This book is far from my best work, but right now I just want to try and capture some of the magic as I bring it to a close. After all, I do love the story and the characters. I just need the spark again.

One year ago today, I started a chain within 1K. I can write whatever I feel like to hit target, and prior to that date, I wrote story content about 60% of days, and a mix of short stories, editing top-up and miscellaneous bits and pieces like synopsis. Early in 1K it was closer to about 45-50% efficiency, and the rest was often made up of what I called “Extra Ideas”. Think a stream of consciousness mesh of this blog, story ideas, random angry thoughts and whatever else entered my head. I did 57 of those in the end, including one each day after the end of my last relationship on December 27th. Since January 20th, 2018, I’ve not done a single one, and this blog ended up assimilating the functionality.

As I got further into 1K, my ‘efficiency’ has grown at a rate I scarce dreamt of in the early days. That I’m now averaging 1,100 a day, plus editing a whole chapter of a previous story, blogging and journalling every single day is miraculous to me. Yet even as I allow for that inevitable growth, I have to also remember that “1K is Enough”, that all these extra trappings that came since, the journal (day 4), the blog (day 133) and even the editing (day 726) could all go away tomorrow, and as long as I wrote my thousand, that would be enough. All the same, to be able to say I wrote at least 1K of a novel every single day for a year is a new and humbling achievement. I hope this chain persists for a long while to come.

Looooong day again but a good one,at least from the perspective of being productive. I mostly focused on work tasks, but writing’s gone ok too, mostly in planning. Just gotta finish up target, but to be honest,I feel like I’m getting better. This is another fairly short post, but I’m sure tomorrow’s will be much longer. Big landmark.

TWR hit 70,000 words today. Crossing the novel threshold is nice, but man, this story is not ready for prime time by a long shot. A dear friend asked me if I’d like them to go through it with a red pen. God no was my response, and not just because I don’t much like sharing first or even early drafts. To be frank, I write with the door closed, but this work when it’s done might need to go on ice behind a locked door for a while. It’s not like WAN where I would quite like to shut a safe door on it and never look at it again, but this is not my best work by a long shot, and it’s going to need so much surgery to keep it from keeling over the moment it leaves my control.

I didn’t use my walking stick once today, which was a big step up (heh) on where I was even as recently as yesterday. But it’s a good thing I can work from home, because there is no way I can venture much further without repainting the pavement with my face. Not an inviting image…

I’m knackered but ok. My foot is a bit of a mess still, but I’ve tried to switch off for today and rest up. I’ve had a quite relaxed day that all said, but I do need to take time to do more resting tomorrow. That’s my queue right now: rest, rest, more rest. Writing is of course in there too but I am shattered and need it so bad.

On that note, ciao.

At some point in the next two days, I will get TWR to hit 70,000 words. This is pretty cool, as previously discussed it makes the novel ‘novel length, but there is a big caveat. I am quite sure I am going to be cutting a lot of this book in the rewrite. I like he characters, the setting, and the premise. I like the present day, and I like the characters’ chemistry. What I am far less sure of is the pace at which information should be drip-fed to my protagonists, and what I want a final confrontation to look like.

The good news is I wouldn’t be uploading this story for at least a year on my old schedule, so if I stick to that then I’ve got plenty of time. The bad news is that while that may be true, I am still in a bind where it comes to upping my Wattys exposure with multiple new entries each year. That will become even more key when I can no longer enter some of my older stories, assuming they keep moving the current cut off point of 2017 forwards, which would in two years if a steady increase annex TUS from my entries into the void.

Ok that’s hyperbole, but you get my frustrations. I do not feel uploading a sub-par product is the right move, and I do have my editing plan which should help out a lot, but the fact I won’t be serialising WAN means I lose a whole book from my backlog.

…Which is a roundabout way of coming back to NaNoWriMo. Yes, this again. I am still against the idea of piling more work on myself, particularly as I am in a state of ‘functional burnout’ at present, despite some holiday. Adding an extra 1,700 words to my blog (200~), journal (350~), and 1K itself (1,100~) means I am close enough doubling the length of my daily requirements, even if I do also feel that the condensed nature of the novel would help, as well as no emotional links to a wider series.

I would select A Planet Named George if I was to write anything for NaNoWriMo, and just serialise it as I go on WattPad, in the hopes that the algorithms wouldn’t punish me for that. If I view it as a bit of fun that couldn’t hurt to add to my catalogue, then it sounds appealing. If I remember that 1K+ more or less gave me a chest infection I got so run down, it becomes, less appealing. Jury’s out. I need to sleep on it. Actually given I pulled an all nighter to watch the debate, I just need to sleep.

Well it’s a good thing I’m staying up for the last debate anyway because between work and where my head’s otherwise been at I still haven’t written yet. Griiiiiiim, and so avoidable. After Friday I’m going to need to hard-reset my biological clock pretty hard. Time to give it my best stab…