Writing goal: 25,000 words
Words written: 43,020
From the 1st until the 7th (well, the 5th really), I set up in my lounge room and ran another home writing retreat to start the new wheel and Writvember with a boom (و •̀ ᴗ•́ )و
I posted regular updates to Instagram and YouTube as I went (still learning how to use both of those (ᵕ ⚆_⚆)ゞ). Feel free to check those out if you want to follow me a bit more in real time. I’ve learnt how to make meme reels and will not stop.
Dual Wielding: Blade’s Gauntlet is projected to have 3 arcs, 8 acts and 32 chapters. So far, I have the drafts for 13 chapters (Arc 1 and just starting Arc 2). I already know that I need to reshuffle and cull down the second and third act, one of the chapters I’ve written needing to be merged with another. But that’s for editing me to look at in Prepuary and Editary. Effectively what happened, if you’re curious, is that I wasn’t looking at the plan properly whilst I was hammering out the writing. It’s great when the writing takes care of itself but this is one of the side effects.
Day 1, Friday: 8,312
Day 2, Saturday: 5,758
Day 3, Sunday: 7,501
Day 4, Monday: 9,280
Day 5, Tuesday: 4,400
Day 6, Wednesday: 3,136
Day 7, Thursday: 4,633
My biggest writing day was on day 4 and then I lost steam from there. What happened was a combination of growing complacent because I reached my word goal, the scenes I’d been dying to write were written, and I was definitely mentally fatigued.
Comparing with my first writing retreat, I think 3-4 days is my sweet spot. Though I still wrote about 12,000 words in the last three days, they were night moments of motivation rather than an actual day of working on the manuscript. Think works out well enough for doing the retreat over the weekend, from when I finish work on Friday and return on Monday. The only reason I had such a long retreat period this time is because I was on leave.
Removing myself from my main workspace and surrounding myself only with my writing materials works, but I think for the reason of novelty rather than an attempt to cut myself off from the rest of my work/hobbies. I often find that a way to motivate myself it to trick myself into believing that it’s worth more dopamine by making it a “special event”. Moving into the lounge room helps with distractions but the building of an “event”, with a schedule and milestones, is where the magic happens.
So I will definitely be doing more solo writing retreats in the future. Maybe one day I’ll get to travel for one. I’ve thought about setting up a tent in the lounge room, but I don’t think there’s enough space. One day I might even join a group of writers on a writing retreat. I’ve never really written with other writers, I barely talk about my writing with people other than my partner, but trying to connect with other writers online has so far been interesting and encouraging and so who knows (˵ •̀ ᴗ •́ ˵ ) ✧
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