2024 Writing Goal Check-In

Now that we're past the year's halfway point, I wanted to give a brief update on my 2024 writing goals. I wanted to get back to a consistent output of writing at least 500 words of 'new' material every week. So, how am I doing?

Pretty great! Here's how things are looking week-by-week:

I started off 2024 on a tear. The major project I'm working on is a sequel to Spacewalker, and I already had some old material written. I picked back up on that and... ended up running into a wall. The same wall I ran into last time I noodled around with this sequel idea.

A shocking epiphany set me straight: I hadn't built a world that was easy for my main character to exist in, and therefore wasn't easy for me to write about, especially from his POV. After a few weeks of world-building and brainstorming, I scrapped most of my old work and started over from scratch with a brand-new first chapter.

From there on out, I was re-energized and viewing the project in a whole new light. Excepting the occasional weeks where I got busy or hung-up on a chapter, I very comfortably exceeded my (admittedly low) weekly goal!

One other item that's worth calling out about this data is the distinction between new material and 'rewrites.' I thought it would be interesting to track how much effort I'm spending going back to fix chapters I already considered done. Those big chunks of rewrites in weeks 19 and 21 were due to needing to go back and massage the events around the quarter mark of the story to set all the pieces in motion to make the First Plot Point work. I'm curious to see if the amount of rewrites simply increases over time as the story grows more complex, or if those rewrites will tend to cluster around major events like the FPP and Midpoint. 

Here's one more view of the data--this time, by month.

If you exclude that outlying first week in January, I'm generally trending upward in raw output as the year goes on. June was an especially productive month, helped in no small part by a week-long vacation where I sipped cocktails on the dock and wrote in the sunshine. I'm eager to see if I can match or top that without the benefit of vacation time!

Finally, I did set a stretch goal for myself to finish the yet-to-be-named Spacewalker sequel by the end of 2024. Well, all this writing is getting me somewhere! As I type today, I am one chapter shy of the story's midpoint. Once I write that middle chapter, I plan to step back for a week or so, shore up my outline, and dive into the second half!

Here's to hoping I can take a victory lap when I provide my next 2024 writing update!