March Wrap-up

Well now, it's been another productive month of writing for me. I am very close to finishing this monstrosity of a book now, too. As I write this I am writing the final chapter. I plan to take on an epilogue afterwards, but after that I shall be finished. I've already started the editing process, and I hope to take on a chapter a week until I finish it. Hopefully I will be cutting more than adding, though I quite often add more than I cut based on past experience. Regardless, this project is nearing completion and I can pursue the task of finding an agent as well submitting it to publishers. But for now, I shall post up the graph for March.

The Milestone

I have done it. I have reached a mark which I had once thought far off and unobtainable. By my word processor's built in count, I have reached one hundred thousand words, and find that I'm still not finished with my novel, though I am very nearly there. Though this milestone passes with less fanfare than the results of my NaNoWriMo competition, I feel it is more impressive than the fifty thousand word mark, and shows that I do have what it takes to not just write the bare minimum length of a novel, but to write one of depth and complexity more akin to my favorite authors of the genre have written. And I believe that for my first attempt at a novel, I could not have wanted for better. And so I will be celebrating, minorly for I wish to save the real celebration for the rough draft I will complete soon. To those who have been following me on this journey, I urge you to take a celebratory moment on my behalf. Excelsior!

Week's End

Now for the results of the grand experiment: The results are . . . mixed. Mostly due to the fact that the experiment was not carried out exactly as I outlined a week ago. I did sneak in the occasional streaming episode and YouTube clip over the week, so that does skew my results somewhat. However, I can still say I learned a great deal from the experiment.

• First, it does help to have the television off when during certain activities, particularly writing.
• Second, I don't actively watch that much television. My activities through the week generally did not change. The television largely remains as background noise for me, providing the occasional distraction from what I'm doing on the computer.
• Third, I think the Internet represents a bigger vacuum for my time than the television, though i generally use both together in tandem to negate some of the downsides of both.
• Fourth, performing such an experiment when my sleeping habits are closer to that of vampires than humans is not a good idea. Especially in trying to change that schedule. I've suffered through massive insomnia during the week, and am even surprised at my ability to function at all.
• Fifth, I didn't get any books read, but I attribute that more to number four than television.
  

With these lessons learned, I will make myself more productive during the week, and I plan to re-run the experiment, after dealing with my insomnia, and plan to cut back on the Internet, as well. I think by cutting back on my time in front of the computer and television, I will leave myself with productive reading or other miscellaneous activities.