June was a unique experience in that I was writing the middle of the book and coming back from a great vacation at the beginning of the month. I managed to write about 4,000 words or so on my vacation, and when I came back I didn’t want to work. So I took the week off.

This feeling of malaise has followed me right up until last week when I finally got the part of the book I’ve been wanting to write. So I suppose you can chalk up the month’s lower wordcount to the vacation combined with writing a part of the book that isn’t my favorite part to write; somewhere between the 50% and 66% mark. Blagh. Let’s take a look at the stats, shall we?

Total Words Written in June: 13,423.
Total Days Having Written: 12
Average Words Per Day:  1,119
Total Words Written by the End of June:  47,076

Ew. Now I don’t usually measure by how many days I’ve written in a month. I much prefer measuring by total output. If that means writing 5,000 words a day for three days then so be it. I might actually prefer it that way, to be honest, as it seems to my mind a more productive way of doing things. But a working professional writer writes almost every day and I need to build up that discipline first in order to plan for eventually writing full-time. So I’m a little surprised and disappointed to realize that I only wrote less than half of the days of the month. I can only do better this month.

The total words for June is 3,141 under the total for May and 3,666 under the total for April. Had I written just three more days I would have matched that level of output.

On the positive side, I’m still around 10,000 words above my minimum goal for June. I’m writing this during a break at work so I don’t have the exact number handy. I seem to have had this problem last month as well. So let’s just say we’re well within the ballpark.

I think it’s possible that I don’t like writing the middles of books. The resultant drop in my motivation to write and the fact that this is the least interesting part of the book for me, combined with me wondering if I will ever finish this make this a likely possibility. But I’ll have to write a few more books to be sure. July, however, is shaping up well as I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

As of July 12th, I’ve written a total of 53,635 words. I want to crack 65,000 by the end of the month, but we will see. This means my book has expanded beyond the initial 60,000 word goal. I’m pretty sure I will go beyond that, but am unsure if I will hit 80,000 words. I would like to, because it would be nice to know that I can plot and write a mass market-sized novel. But we will have to see if there’s enough story there. I won’t be artificially trying to expand it.

Hopefully you can expect July’s update within the first week of August.

The Rundown
Life in General:  I’m missing home already. I’m also addicted to Pokemon, which I’m playing on my new 3DS that I splurged for. Went to the fireworks at Fort Vancouver and traded StreetPass data with two other people. This is a neat idea, but I don’t live in a crowded enough country for it to really catch on. Ideally one should be able to trade StreetPass data with players over the Internet.
Short Story: Synopsis still awaiting approval from the client.
Work: Doing my best to earn that raise in November!
Exercise: Didn’t exercise at all after my vacation at the beginning of June. Curiously I did not gain any weight. Perhaps I’ve modified my eating habits enough. Yet, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, I actually kind of miss the running. Since I don’t use the YMCA’s pool or weight machines for the most part, this is probably a good time to leave the Y and get a cheaper membership at another place elsewhere. Or buy a treadmill. Whichever.
SW City and Active Worlds: Active Worlds Inc. has had some staff turnover recently and the resulting soap opera on the forums has been fun to watch, though I sympathize with my friend who works there still. She gets to deal with all the unreasonable and irate teenagers on the phone and in the forums now. SW City hasn’t done much. Toying with planning a reunion-type event, but Ima Genius is doing a cruise in a few months, so that may mean it won’t make sense for us to do our own thing nine months later. This means my ConCarolinas friends will probably get to see me next year. Either way I win!
Voice Acting: Finished my first arc of episodes for the Bubblegum Crisis audio drama. I need to finish up a Podcast intro for a friend this week before I write any more.