Last week was a difficult week in many ways. I ended up being sick every other day. Sunday I came down with a cold-like thing. Tuesday was the first day of my cycle, and I felt like crap all day long. Thursday something was blooming and I spent the day in a daze, unable to breathe. I didn’t write anything at all for two of those three days.

However.

My stated goal for the week was approximately 3000 words per day. Even with being sick half of the days, I still wrote over 21K words for the week.

My goal this week? Another 21K words. The week after? Another 21K words. And so on.

I think I can achieve this. It means my focus for the month is on writing. I need to write every day that I can, while accepting that there will be days when I can’t write. I need to average 3K words per day. That means writing a bit more on some days.

My sweetie and I have been talking crazy numbers and amounts of words. Let me be clear: We are NOT in competition with each other, just with ourselves.

He’s writing more words per day/month than I am currently. In part, that’s because he’s a couple months ahead of me in terms of being able to focus on the words. I had to split my focus on a bunch of other things for the first part of the year. Honestly, this June has been the first month in *years* that I’ve been able to focus primarily on the writing (finally!)

One of the ideas I was tossing around this morning was to try to do two marathons during a month. Not July. I want to nail down 21K per week first. Probably not August either. Might have to wait until October, when summer’s over and we don’t have so many projects around the farm that we have to do, so many weeds that need pulling in the garden!

The marathons would work like this:

Spend one week writing at “marathon” speed–10K words per day (with 10K of steps thrown in as well). Do that for five days.

Take 9 days “off”, writing at a more normal pace, which for me is between 3-5K per day. It’s basically slowing down for the weekend, a week, and the next weekend. And I get to catch up on everything.

Then, do another five days of “on”–10K words per day.

When I’m in “flow” mode, I’m writing about 2000K words per hour. It’s easy and it’s fun. I get what we’ve termed a “writer’s high” afterward. It’s very similar to a runner’s high.

So if I’m actually managing 2K words per hour, writing 10K words per day means about five hours of work. Realistically, it’s actually between six-seven hours per day because that first hour of a day is always slower for me.

Plus, there are books that resist “flow” mode. The Franklin book that I’m currently working on is super fast for me to write (except now and then when I get stuck). I can drop into flow state really easily most of the time. While the last book I wrote during a marathon I found very difficult to drop into flow state.

It may be the difference between writing in a familiar world with known characters versus writing something completely new. Something to think about when choosing projects.

We’ll see what happens with the next book, which I’ve already been thinking about. The First Seattle Trolls trilogy is finished. But the Great War hasn’t begun. There’s a new trilogy that’s kind of a follow-on to the first, that’s all about the Great War. It starts five years after the last book finishes. The tone would be darker, and it wouldn’t just be from Christine’s POV. (Okay, to be honest, I’ve already got most of the first chapter written out in my head, from the POV of Lars, the demon.)

IF that becomes the next novel I’m writing, (BIG IF) chances are, the novel after that would be another brand new piece, set in Portland, “The Witch’s Heart.” It means I’d have to go spend a few days down in Portland doing research as well…

And then, as my husband has been teasing me, what am I going to do for the rest of July?

I have short stories that I need to work on. I will have a few that are due. But I may continue to blow those off and focus primarily on novels for a while. We’ll see.

One of the other things that I’m going to write before the end of the year will be another Business for Breakfast book all about growing your inner artist. I know I’ve written about that before, primarily in book one and book six: “The Beginning Professional Writer” and “The Healthy Professional Writer.”

I don’t want to repeat what I’ve said already, but I do plan on expanding some of those sections.

Is there anything else that you’d like to see me write about in the next B4B? Feel free to respond here or send me an email.

Hope y’all are having a lovely week.