Writing Review: November 2024

In my last post, I stated that, even though I’m not doing NaNoWriMo anymore, I wanted to designate November as a focus month for writing anyway:

To that end, I’m committing to writing something every single day. I’m not going to worry about specific word counts, because I know my writing habits well enough to know that that will take care of itself if I just get my rear end into my seat.

Success has been mixed, although I’ll be fair enough to myself to admit that there has been a reason. I had gone to the doctor on October 30th, complaining about some female trouble, and the doctor was concerned enough order some testing, which happened on November 6th and November 13th. For the time being she also put me on a hormonal medication. At first, I’d objected to it — I’ve had some pretty bad reactions to these type medications before — but when I was still not recovered from the biopsy on November 16th, I gave in and started to use it.

I wasn’t wrong to object, as there have been significant side effects, including a bone-crushing fatigue that has been so profound that it would have scared me, if I hadn’t already known it was a possible side effect. That said, it has helped with the immediate problem I was having. I’ve also received the biopsy results and, while they were negative for cancer, they were positive for a more benign condition. In a way, that was a relief; now that we know what’s going on, the doctor and I can formulate a plan to take care of the root problem instead of keeping me on this medication.

The whole situation has played havoc with my writing, though. That said, my final word count for the month is north of what would have been a normal monthly goal. It’s not quite to the goal I’d made for November, though, and I have also missed more than a few writing days.

I’m pretty disappointed about missing my goals, but not enough to give up.

One bright spot has been that, during this last week of November, I’ve been able to up the blog posting frequency to three times per week. I already have plans for the next set of posts; all I need to do now is get my rear in the seat and write them. Eventually, I’d like to get to where I’m posting nearly every day, but three times a week is plenty for moving to Phase II where I start trying to build an audience.

I got three chapters of Standing in the Dark written, as well as a brand-new situation for Tales from Winter Camp. I also managed to get myself back to my Wednesday night virtual writers’ group. I was exhausted and I fell asleep a couple of times, but I made it. (Thank goodness cameras can be turned off, though.) In addition, I’m now only one post shy of completing each of my first and second blog post mini-series; and I’ve already fired up a third one.

In other words, while I’m bummed about missing my goal for the month, I was steady about keeping up what I already had going. That’s something to be optimistic about.

Let’s see if I can hang on to that momentum, and increase it a little, during December. Stay tuned!