January Word Count / Goals

original short fiction: 1542
Haley novel: 3638
Total new words in January: 5180

Queries sent: 4

Quotas met!

I apparently spoke too soon about the Haley novel having inertia on its side. I took a little break around Christmas, fair enough, and my alpha reader had not one but two chapters in hand, and there was all that snow shoveling... and suddenly a few weeks had gone by, and a break was threatening to turn into a block. I'd love to blame part of it on the wait for feedback, but while my alpha-reader was definitely not flying at top speed, I knew perfectly well what the next chapter was going to be and wasn't anticipating her coming back with any major alterations (as, in the event, she did not). So nope, this one's all on me.

I tried a little prompt-fic to get the writing muscles limbered up again, and after a few false starts it did the trick nicely. I even got quite a good story out of it; in fact, it's off to a major market right now. And then it was a matter of grabbing myself by the scruff of my neck and throwing myself at the next chapter, and while it never quite got easier, it at least got less hard. I was pushing for word-count right up until the end of the month, but it got done. What I'm fondly referring to as "the giant info-dump conversation chapter" is at the de-bracketing point, and I even figured out (or found; back-brain, did you set that up on purpose?) a reason for the thing I need to not happen until the next chapter to not happen until the next chapter. ;-)

For February: same again; 5000 words, query every seven days. Forward momentum.