On Tuesday, I’d done a lot of painting but hadn’t gotten much finished. Today I worked at finishing several pieces. I got 5 new ACEO’s finished and started 3 more.

I almost kicked my Siva novel to the curb (at least temporarily). It started falling apart on my and my critical voice was jumping all over it. I manage to soothe one of the issues over, but yeah, it’s just not working out. Once I realized I was getting blocked on it, I stopped and walked away. There is no sense in letting my critical voice come up with several arguments against it when my creative voice just needs a moment to figure out how far I need to go back in it and start again. I don’t think I need to go too far.

There’s also a possibility that I’ll be able to pick up right where I’m at. I have left a couple blank chapters in because I need to go back and tell some of the story from my hero’s point of view. I’d written a lot of it from my heroine’s point of view and that’s what I’ve been working through. But now I’m feeling the need to speed things along. I need my characters back together. Plus, there’s a lot of silly stuff that happens that shouldn’t be relevant to the story, not as my creative voice wants to tell the story at the moment. So, I probably need to go back, fill in the blank chapters, and just ditch the rest. Or most of the rest. There is a part where another character is telling a bit his story and that was a springboard for an idea for a book for him, so I need to go find that. Otherwise, I really don’t think there’s much valid writing in the remainder. It was probably just *crap* coming out so that I could satisfy my daily word count back then. I knew the story was falling apart and I should’ve stopped. Gotta love those “shoulds.”

I did change from counting words daily to completed words. My charts are going to be off, but at this point, it’s still an experiment. I do, however, think I’ve written more words. While I still have a little of the critical voice screaming at me that I’ve wasted time if I don’t finish going through all the story I wrote (even though I know it’s got to change), I know that I have to shove those words off and continue with *working* story in order to get it done. None of it counts until it’s done. If I don’t finish it, then that’s wasted time. It feels a little strange because I have no idea where I’m at with anything until I finish. I’ve gotten two Fenrir stories and a short story done since I started this method, as well as working on the novel. It’s a bit unnerving. I’m panicking about getting to the end of the month and not having sufficient words done, even though I know that I could easily have 70,000 words done in May to make up for an April shortage. Yes, I do believe this is making me push harder.

It’s the way I do it with my painting though. I don’t count how much painting I’ve done until I finish a piece. It’s also why I setup a “carryover” formula in my spreadsheet. Not that I’ve been able to hit very many weekly streaks. I usually get up about 4-5 weeks of hitting my weekly goal, then I drop off.

But, I’m trying something new with my painting as well. You know me, always the tinkerer. I purchased a monthly dry erase calendar. I had thought I’d use it to keep track of my completed pieces and their numbers — last year I had a little calendar by my easel, but I often still forgot to use it and had to go back after-the-fact to figure out what I’d done. So, I’ve been using that erasable calendar for that. But I also decided to make down days that I paint (since a painting day might not result in finished pieces) and what days I work on audio. This way, I can keep track of what I do and see if patterns emerge. My goal is to have 2-3 days of painting and audio work each week.

I also mark days I mentally wipe myself out completely. My goal there is to have no bad days. I had to put a big X on one day in April already. I don’t like it. I’ve been using it to remind myself to be vigilant of my thoughts. Only I can prevent myself from having bad days.

At the end of the month, I’ll take a picture and store it so I have a record I can go back and look at. At some point, I will find my rhythm for handling the many pieces and parts my creative endeavors require from me.

Keep swinging.