A Quarter of a Million Words, and I’m Still Feeling Like a Slacker?

October is almost over. I can’t believe how crazy it’s been. When it started, I had pie in the sky plans for finishing my third Legally in Love novel, and I was off to a running start, about 45,000 words in ten days. Yay! And then… for the next three weeks, not even 100 words as life high-jacked all my plans.

Sometimes, just to feel like a bit of a martyr perhaps or so that I don’t feel like a slouch and a time-wasting loser, I make a “ta-da” list instead of a “to do” list, especially when I am down on myself for not reaching a certain arbitrary deadline or goal I’ve given myself. Looking back on the word count disaster, I have to do this or else I’ll just mope.

TA-DA LIST:

• Edited three 90,000+-word novels, for myself and two crit partners. That, my pretties, is over a quarter of a million words edited in the last 12 days. Shoosh!
• Cleaned my house, yard, and truck for when my parents came to visit—quite a feat, since I’ve been writing like a maniac, and let’s just say things had started looking like nature was going to take the place back as her own.
• Planned a lunch for 50 teenage boys
• Planned and prepared a meal for 35 teenagers—the same day as the 50-kid lunch
• Formed a committee to create a scholarship
• Helped my kids enter stuff in the county fair, went to the fair FOUR times, and worked twice at the political booth
• Went on three all-day trips out of town for kids’ events and stuff for my husband’s work
• Prepared and taught a church lesson and attended quite a few meetings (normal Mormon life being that we believe in meetings; we believe in all meetings; we have attended many meetings and hope to attend all meetings…)
• Ran 55 miles and biked about 70
• Drove for the field trip (I’m sitting in the parking lot at the Observatory writing this right now)
• Helped kids organize a total of SEVENTEEN (no exaggeration) different costumes, including sewing a skunk costume from scratch (and I don’t really sew)
• Chauffeured a cute little batch of girls to play practice a dozen times and volunteered to keep the peace in the dressing room
• Listened to and approved 4 hours of audio for the Immersed audiobook project (yay! It’s happening!)
• Released TWO novels: Asked & Answered, and Under the Mistletoe (a Timeless Romance Anthology) which went to #1 in Amazon’s “Clean Romance” new releases. Woot!
• Organized the ARC distribution of those novels to my Review Team
• Formalized a Review Team
• Developed an official mailing list
• Created and distributed an author newsletter
• Chose covers for two new novels, which I’ll reveal sometime soon
• Had a great visit with my parents
• Organized a family lunch for 30 at my house
• And last but not least, saw my little daughter get baptized on one of the sweetest, happiest days of my entire life.

This is only stuff I can think of off the top of my head, and I’m not even going to mention the little skirmishes I had to fight against myself now and then. One thing that’s not on this list: slept eight hours at a stretch even once. One thing I wish weren’t on the list: gained seven pounds. Alas.

I know there’s a touch of martyr syndrome in me, and I’m working on that, but when I look at this list it does make me feel a touch better and less like a total slacker as a writer. Now, enough whining. I’m going to go add some padding to my word count. I wish I could get this whole project done in time to start a new book (which I outlined on one of the out of town trips) for NaNoWriMo for November, but I’m going to just cut myself some slack and write this book at a reasonable pace.

Meanwhile, ASKED AND ANSWERED comes out tomorrow! I’m really happy with the feedback reviewers have given it so far. It’s still fluff, but I think the characters are sweet, and their story makes me happy. I hope it will make you happy too.