Writing Stats for February 2014

Here's the second "writing stats" post of the year, letting you know how my writing output is progressing.

Before I get to the numbers, I should say that I had some days this month of getting up late, errands, and a medical appointment, all of which interfered with my schedule. I also spend two days prepping the next Blue Pistol novel for release.

The overall goal for this month was the same as last month: 4 pages a day during morning sessions, and 2 pages a day during afternoon sessions, 6 days a week.

For February I wrote 119 pages. If I had been able to write 6 pages a day, every day, I would have written 144 pages this month. So, once again, my page count was down by about 20-25 pages. That said, under the old regime of 4 pages a day, six days a week, I would have produced 96 pages this month, if I wrote every day.

(For those of you who are into word counts, those 119 pages translates into about 30,000 words written this month.)

I'm starting a new schedule in March. I plan to write two sessions a day, Monday through Friday, with a goal of writing 4 pages in each session. Saturdays I only have a single morning session planned, with a goal of writing 4 pages in that session.

In some ways this schedule reflects what I'm already doing. I don't feel at all productive writing a couple of pages in the afternoon. Rarely do I feel like stopping after writing only 2 pages. Just like in the morning, I feel like I can write at least 4 pages in the second session. So I'm going to accept what I'm already doing and make it official.

As to Saturdays, I feel like I'm not always getting to reading or anything else with two sessions six days a week. The not reading part really bugs me, since I am a writer. I want to put in more time reading, even if I can't always afford to buy every book I want to read. I'll see how I feel after I go at this for a while. Since event season for me starts at the end of April, and will go through early August, I'm not going to consider any changes to this writing schedule until the autumn.

So, first two months of 2014 have been slow, but works are being written and completed. I can live with that.