Today is not just a good day, it’s a great day! I got up early. I feel wonderful. Sputtery Truck isn’t so sputtery at the moment (and I ordered parts only to replace that will ensure it stays less sputtery). I have an incredible week off from work. I didn’t have 10,000 emails when I got back (only 9,999). So today is a GREAT day.

It’s the 26th of November. I have 5 writing days left to hit 50,000 words. Can I do it? I’m sitting on 40689. That means I have less than 9000 words to go! I’d do the math, but why do math when I can be thinking about the awesome things that will be happening to my characters in the next few day?

I’m also excited that I crossed the 450,000 word mark. That was my word goal for 2012 and I passed that mark with lots of year still left to go. Next year’s goals are still coalescing in my mind and we’ll see what happens. I’m shifting between 2000 words per weekday, 1500 words per day, 350,000 words of new fiction + 200,000 words on the blog. So much thought is going into just what I’ll do next year, it’s a little distracting. What do I do?

I say down and wrote last night. I had fully intended to take a day off from writing. I couldn’t do it! I just couldn’t. I’ve built up all this momentum and motivation and excitement, how can I NOT write?

Let me take a couple deep breaths here.

Okay, better. How has your year gone? Did you keep track of the number of words you wrote? Did you accomplish what you set out to do? Do you have time to set a quick goal and accomplish it before the end of the year? Were your thoughts greater than realization? Are you revamping your goals for next year?

It’s never too early to start planning what you’re going to do. I used to think “Pfft, I don’t need to write that down, I’ll know when I hit my target.” Seeing my numbers in a spreadsheet really drove home the point that I DO need to see the numbers and goals in front of me. I need to see then each and every day or I’ll allow things to slip and slide out of control. My year wasn’t perfect. I won’t lie. But my numbers were in a steady upward trend all year. Here’s the graph showing 2012’s progress for the curious.

Like I said, steady, upward progress. Each day was only a small, tiny portion of the words I needed for the entire year. It wasn’t always easy. The straight, blue line you can see shows the target, the jagged, red line shows you where I was actually at. The flat line at the very end shows you December (words I haven’t written yet). Little things like this motivated me throughout the year. Even when I hit a slump, I could still see where I was at, make adjustments, kick my self in the rear and write more.

It’s not always easy to motivate yourself. Sometimes you think what you’re writing sucks, you see friends writing or producing anthologies and think, I want to come play in that sandbox. I strongly doubt that it’s ever anything personal, but I keep pressing forward and putting work out there. Well, I was. Next year I’ll be putting more out there and having a lot of fun doing on. As long as I’m having my fun, others can have their fun. If we share in that fun together, bonus, but I can’t pause and dwell on anything negative or it’ll suck me down into a hole (yes, that did happen this year)

I know I’ll see negative reviews. I’ve seen those before. They suck. I move on. I’m not writing for those people. I’m writing for myself first. That makes the writing more fun than it ever has been. I’m not trying to write to the market. I’m writing the best stuff I can and having a lot of fun in doing so. As long as I’ve been writing I’ve still got so much to learn. Doing what I did this year provided me with so much food for thought on how to tackle next year.

I will continue to put my thoughts together for how this year played out. Where all those words went. What I accomplished. What I intended to accomplish. What went right. What went wrong. It’ll be a wordy post that will have to wait until after NaNoWriMo. I have a day job that needs doing. I’d better get on that.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!