Here we are, halfway through the first month of the last quarter of 2018. I can’t believe this year is rapidly coming to an end.

I was looking at my projects this weekend. I don’t think I’ll have any more publications this year, but there will be several novels released in 2019. I currently am actively working on 6 novels and one story which I’m not sure if it will be novella length or a full novel. Several of these stories I hope will be released next year.

My son was in a play this last week and so it was a week with an odd schedule. My youngest came to watch Adrian’s play, which allowed me to see him for a bit. I kept myself flexible in order to keep myself working and getting things done.

And yet…

I haven’t been doing my weekly goal planning in a couple months, which means I also have been planning my days for several weeks. I’m to a point where I’m noticing. For over a year, I’ve plotted out what I’m going to accomplish during the week. Then, I started slipping. I felt like I was just rolling over my task list from one day to another, then from one week to another. So I stopped doing it. Now I can feel the free fall.

I admit that it’s a little scary.

I do feel like I’m adrift.

I’m glad that I have my last quarterly notes. It’ll give me a place to review and start anew. It’s an interesting spot to be. I’m really glad that I can see — no, feel the difference.  Maybe it helps me to align my own system so I can trust my gut a little better. I’ve always been one to act first and deal with consequences later. I sometimes wonder if I stop and adequately reflect on events to learn from them.

Well, there’s some deep thoughts. Probably more than I should have said.

Obviously with my schedule being irregular from usual, my focus was on getting my words and my Inktober drawings done.  I’ve also spent a lot of time listening to audiobooks and reading this week. That’s been fun.

I’ve also completed my outline of Tangled Magic and have started the outline for Walk the Path. The biggest thing I’ve learned from this is that I need to start keeping these outlines as I go along. In reading through everything, even skimming like I am, I see that I am wasting quite a bit of time. I need to do this for several novels, including more than the 5 novels I mentioned above. I don’t yet know how I will incorporate this into my process since I’ve tried before to keep a running outline as I write and I hated doing it. Yet, I dislike going back through the novel time and time again to get this outline. So, since I don’t like doing it right after I finish a chapter, I might have to see if I can work it in before I start writing for the day, kind of like a review. I’ll have to see if that works better. If I was smart, I’d get started on that while I’m working on Stonebreaker, but I feel as if I should go back to the beginning and get the whole thing — that sounds plainly boring. So, I ought to just get started in the middle of things and work forward to get where I’m at now, later. Sigh. If there is any part of writing that I don’t like, it’s outlining, whether before or after writing. I just like writing. Maybe I need someone else to do the Cliff Notes version for me. **grin**

I’m looking forward to getting back to my regular routine now. Even if that includes figuring out how to prepare outlines.

Let’s look at the numbers.

Fiction words written last week:  4,616 words.

Blogs/Newsletter articles/non-fiction written:  2,089 words.

Daily word goal reached for 65 days — this streak is a new record for me. Weekly word goal reached for 12 weeks.

Writing month to date total:  14,192 words

Writing year to date total: 261,997 words

Drawing/painting last week: I did paint this week! Not much, but some. I drew my daily Inktober drawings. I also prepared a few pencil sketches for the next few days, but I’m not certain I will use all of them yet. I might completely rethink some. My prerogative.

Audio: I spent 5 hours recording and editing audio. I only got to record on Sunday, but I had to move a lot of files to clear up space on my computer before I worked at getting recordings done, so it was fine I didn’t hit my goal of two chapters per week.