Progress report

Well the date says it all – the first month of the new year already behind us.

After I finished writing today I decided to have a look at my goals and check my progress.  As one of them has a time limit of the end of February it seemed a good idea.  

So how am I doing?  The first week was good and I wrote six days out of the seven and met the daily hours target.  The second week in comparison I missed on both as I had a quick-turnaround contract job that took a lot of hours.  I had set myself high targets for January and February knowing that (usually!!) it is extremely quiet for training and development work.  Still I have to eat so the work was very welcome.  Since then I have made the number of days goals and most days met the hourly target (occasionally exceeding it when the work was flowing). 

But those measurements don’t mean anything if the writing progress is rubbish, or the writing come to that.  Overall I’m quite happy with the progress.  I’ve worked through each of the character strands, adding a few sections where needed, rewriting, and some restructuring.  Today I started reading through the entire manuscript, once again making notes for change.   Why are there always things to change?  I wonder if I’ll ever get to the stage where I’m entirely happy with a manuscript.  In addition I’ve realised that I need to rewrite the closing sections, but I think I’m still on target.

As for the other goals - I’m improving on the procrastination, though some days are better than others!  Considering my creative writing as a career is certainly helping in that respect.

I haven't done any writing on the articles or competition entries, but I had always intended finishing this draft as the major goal for January and February.

More than anything I am enjoying my writing.  If I don’t, what’s the point?