Get Your Words Out 2019

I wrote creative fiction on a total of 241 days in 2019.

I somehow managed to meet the getyourwordsout "Journeyman" writing habit challenge (writing on 240 days of the year) despite the fact that I hardly wrote anything creative during the first four months of 2019.

What can I say, I was recovering from a serious suicide attempt while trying to submit both a book manuscript and my tenure file by the end of April. That shit was intense.

Setting those first four months aside, I worked on creative writing an average of 24.25 days a month. Every day would be ideal for me – writing is the part of my day I look forward to the most – but teaching, travel, and conferences take a lot out of me, and sometimes it’s hard to be fully human when I get home at night.

In terms of wordcounts, who even knows, really.

Since AO3 keeps statistics, I can say that I wrote the first 40,000 words of a fanfic novel, plus about 40,000 words of shorter pieces. On top of that, I wrote a lot of original fiction, but that’s difficult to measure in terms of wordcounts since it’s mostly still in drafts. Although it’s academic nonfiction, I also formally published about 30,000 words of writing this year, and my book manuscript is a little less than 70,000 words (which is normal for a first book my field).

And then there’s everything else, including a whole hell of a lot of blog posts across various platforms.

I’m not interested in comparing myself to other people, especially since many people who consider themselves to be writers tend to be on an entirely different level of productivity than I am. Still, I think it’s been a decent year for me, all things considered.

Actually, you know what. Let’s be real: This year was shit, and I’m happy it’s over.

I have high hopes for next year, though. May 2020 bring better health and lots of good creative energy!

And also... May the new year bring with it less of a compulsion to be "productive" and more of a steady satisfaction in work that makes me happy.