August 2, 2022

Day two of my writing retreat, and I’m still on track. In fact, I’m officially half way through the book!

Admittedly, today went better than yesterday, time-wise, but I enjoyed writing these chapters much less than yesterday’s. Was it the content in the chapters, or the fact that I didn’t sleep well last night? Or even the fact that I’m just writing a ton of words and my brain is tired? I’m not really sure.

I started writing around 9:00 am this morning, and had that entire chapter done before I had even started writing yesterday! Took a little break, wrote the second chapter of the day, and then took a very long break. By that point I was hitting the wall, and feeling a bit frustrated by my word count. So I ate lunch, responded to some messages, took a nap, and just generally hung about for a bit. I finally got back to it around 3:00 pm, and wrapped up chapter three for the day by 5:00, which felt really good compared to last night’s 10:00 pm.

I spent the evening piddling around – I read some, I scrolled social media some, I talked to Russell for awhile, got in the hot tub, and now I’m updating my book blog. And, just resting and relaxing already has me starting to feel excited about getting back to the next chapter tomorrow.

I just hope my word count is alright. I know that it’s just a rough draft, and I plan to do an initial read through where I mark the parts that need to be expanded on, and then going through and trying to cut down the fluff, but right now I’m halfway through and sitting just over 18,000 words. Double that is only 36,000 and that seems really low. Every time I try and research it though, I get 50,000 is the minimum for a novel – which I’m not writing – or I get “just write, and don’t worry about the word count”.

But how can I not? I’m not trying to write a pamphlet. I’m trying to write a book. One that actually helps people. I don’t want someone to read this and think “what a waste of time – for both the author and myself”. I want it to be practical, and actionable, and helpful!

Am I spiraling? A bit. Is this really even something to worry about? Probably not quite yet. In all likelihood, I’ll do an initial read through and decide that there’s an entire other chapter or two that the book needs. But currently, as it stands, my 50,000 word count goal is seeming impossible, and my smaller goal of 40,000 is even seeming out of reach.

Here’s to hoping that I can crank out more words in my chapters tomorrow!

Love and cat-hair hugs,

Amanda

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