The first month of 2025 is already gone, and we’re once again at the first Wednesday of the month with Insecure Writer’s Support Group. I had to laugh because I looked up the question of the month and it seems like it was written especially for me.
IWSG Question of the Month – Is there a story or book you’ve written you want to/wish you could go back and change?
If you’ve interacted with me at all in the past few months, you know I’m rewriting book 1. You also know I’m not making as much progress as I want. I’ve been plugging along, streamlining events, showing more, telling less. I’m currently 25K in, which sounds great. Except this book is 170K long. Yes, I’ve cut a lot in my planned rewrite, but I write longer, deeper scenes now so I’m expecting it to come out around the same length. It’s already 4K longer compared to the same point in the plot in the old version.
So I did the math. I have 150K to go, and I want to finish this year. That’s 455 words per day. Doable, except there are several days I don’t get to write. Between juggling my job, my kids, their homework, my exercise, cooking dinner, reading with my son, not ignoring my husband, and trying to get enough sleep to be a functional person… I’m left with a 1 hour lunch with which I can choose 1 of 4 activities: writing, critiquing, responding to messages, or working on art while consuming an audiobook. Writing doesn’t always win. On the weekends, I spend a full day taking care of necessary tasks like laundry, house cleaning, grocery shopping, and catching up on all the things I put off during the week due to no time. Sometimes I do have one day left to do some writing, but that isn’t every week.
Therefore, 455 words per day isn’t achievable for me. (That’s my unfortunate realization.)
However, I’m not one of those who subscribes to the “must write every day to be considered a real writer” mentality. Words a week is a better target: 3200, rounding up. That’s still leaps above my recent progress, which *looks at yWriter* was 4700 words in the past 2 months. *sigh* At my current rate, it’d take me 6 years to finish. After taking 10 years on book 2, that’s too long.
I want to finish this book this year. And according to the numbers, I need to up my output to achieve that. And I will, after I show you all the pictures I’ve been working on lately. These are environments from my world, each their own province:
I find I don’t have a passion for environments like I do my characters. But it was a fun experiment visually diving into other areas of my world.
Have you ever done the math to figure out how much is needed to finish one of your works within a year? Do you like environment art? Do you have trouble juggling everything like I do?
About Insecure Writer’s Support Group
You can find the sign up for the IWSG here. We owe Alex J Cavanaugh a huge thank you for thinking this blog hop up.
Those are very cool – stylish!
Maybe you need a vacation day once in a while? I’m a slow writer, so an hour a day wouldn’t get me very far either.
I used to only have an hour a day too. It’s hard juggling work, family, and writing. Just do what you can in the time you have. It’s okay if it takes a little longer to finish the revisions. The important thing is enjoying the process. And work and family are very important too.
Getting help with the things that don’t require you personally to do them (e.g. laundry) can help free up some time. Also, dictation (there are great apps that do speech-to-text), so you can write the first draft while doing something else (like exercising). Good luck with the rewrites!
Ronel visiting for IWSG day Help Needed for Spreading the Word About Irascible Immortals
I tend to struggle with planning/working backwards in general so there’s no way I’d add math to that. 🙂
I have no doubt you’ll figure it all out, Loni!
I love the art and always will. I know you struggle, but I also know you’ll figure it out. There are probably huge passages that don’t need any work at all. I’ve read you and your work is awesome. 🙂
Anna from elements of emaginette
Those are beautiful images.
Don’t beat yourself up about the low production. How those of you with jobs and kids can get ANY writing done is beyond me. Maybe there is one home duty someone else could do to give you even an extra 20 minutes.
Imma scared to do that math! I love the landscapes!
Love the art, sure I’ll love the book too. . In the first chapter, I realised that my latest book’s environmental fiction. Why has that just dawned on me ? Useless at juggling, work-work might be going nowhere, house desperate for TLC, and I still want to write. Why ?:
I feel your pain! Cutting those hard-earned words is one of the hardest jobs a writer has. Loved the images of those settings.
I love the art! I also find revisions to be a long, slow process, but I have the luxury of making writing my “day job” and spending a lot more than an hour a day on it! Hang in there, keep working, and you’ll get there. For me the hardest part of doing it so slowly would be keeping track of what I’m working on–I’d spend all my time refreshing my memory!
Very cool images! I can’t say I’ve ever done math to figure out how long it will take me to write something. I just do it, and keep going until it’s done. Good luck with your revision process!
I empathize. I can’t get anything done in a short time window. It didn’t used to be this way. There was a time when a spare five minutes was all I needed to jot down a few sentences. I guess I just have too much on my mind these days. Maybe I need to go back to writing on my tablet instead of my desktop. Force myself to write on the go…
Don’t give up. Life has seasons, and yours will come.
I only have an hour a day to write, but that’s more than I used to have when I had a demanding day job. It’s also hard when you’re juggling other creative pursuits. By the way, I love what you shared here. I don’t go by words, but am I working on my current project consistently, which for me means most days, but not every day. Family is important, and it’s okay to let writing take a back burner of you need to.
I haven’t written in… Well, it’s been a while. It takes as long as it takes. Rather than looking at how long, look at how far you’ve come. That’s an accomplishment.
Cool pictures! I’ve had to stay away from obsessing on word count. Doing so was destroying my ability to create.
I’ve slowed almost to a crawl. My last book took me years instead of months. I’m at the point where I’m trying not to dwell on how long it took. I’m just happy to be here. Happy IWSG, Loni.
Re-writing a novel is a huge undertaking. I sympathize. As for your pictures, I love the waterfalls. And the moons are beautiful.
I’m slogging through a revision that is taking *forever*, so I feel your pain. I tried calculating how long it would take me at my current pace and just got depressed. I’m enjoying the work and creating something I think I’ll be proud of, so I’m going to let that be enough. Maybe when I retire I can focus more on my writing and be more productive.
Good luck!