Weekly Progress Update:

Weekly Progress Update:

Good morning!

I’ll jump right in. This weekend has been really productive, which has left me feeling great. For those who follow my updates, there was a significant lull in progress during the transition from Madness to Ravaged.

This week, I set out to change that.

Earlier in the week, I set extremely ambitious goals for myself. And by ambitious, I mean I assigned myself more tasks than I ever had before. Now, I definitely had the time to complete them all with proper motivation. It was roughly +20 hours of work. Under perfect circumstances, I do have that much time where I’m not sleeping or working over the course of my weekend. But, I knew accomplishing every task I set was a long shot.

Overall, the purpose of setting such a high goal was to kickstart the engine, so to speak. I had been a bit too stagnant recently and needed to jump back in. It was time to dive head-first into the cold waters. No more dipping my toes and changing my mind last minute.

So, what were my goals?

1. Write Chapters 1 – 3 of Ravaged: I don’t write by word count, I write by chapter. Typically, one chapter per day of writing. It’s always worked best for me and will continue to do so. I’m not one of those people that can just slap a few hundred words on a page per day, progressing steadily little by little. I drive through a chapter, then I stop. It sets a minimum and a maximum and I’m generally always pleased with the output.
2. Write 3 Skirmishes: Some may know, I’ve completed Fangdarr and Bitrayuul’s Skirmishes (there are still two more posts upcoming for Bitrayuul, but they’re written). So, I’m on to the next characters. Normally, I write these on weekday mornings and release them once per week on Tuesdays. I actually need to consider doubling the rate so I can look to publish each Collection (two characters) every six months instead of every twelve.
3. Edit Fangdarr & Bitrayuul’s Skirmishes: As mentioned, these two lines are done and are being published in the first Collection set for Orcs (though Bitrayuul is a half-orc, of course). I needed to compile each episode into a single document and go through and edit the entire thing.
4. Rewrite Honor‘s Prologue: This one was a last-minute write-in. I actually strongly dislike Honor‘s Prologue, in retrospect. The scene is what it needs to be and serves its purpose, however the writing is no longer adequate and needs an update. This is a sort of temporary middle-ground, as I plan to do a full re-edit of Honor in the next few months to prepare to submit to SPFBO6 (assuming it will continue). Ironically, the exact day I decided to rewrite the Prologue, a coworker sent me a message out of the door, having picked up my book, and said he loved the intro/Prologue. Welp, mixed messages. I still plan to revise it heavily to put it in a place I’m happy with.

So, yeah. It was an ambitious weekend. I can tell you, I only achieved one of those – Chapters 1 – 3 of Ravaged. That was the minimum I needed to accomplish, and I did. I still have the rest of today to get some more work done, but to be honest I’m considering jumping into Chapter 4 on Ravaged rather than tackling some of the other tasks. It’s important to follow your momentum where your interest takes it.

In other news, I’ve got a few copies of Honor and Madness out to some book reviewers and am eager to see what they think. It’s always a risk for writers to have their work reviewed, as bad reviews can hurt you. However, that actually leads me into a new point that I plan to discuss in another posting I plan to do today, thanks to a discussion with a new friend on Twitter.

So, stick around, check out the Skirmishes if you’ve fallen behind – or wait until the Collection is published in a few months – and, as always, see you on the battlefield!