500 Days of Kevin

Earlier this week, I hit Day 500 of my consecutive daily writing streak!  The streak started in January of last year while I was writing My Brother’s Keeper and continued with its sequel, The World Will Be Waiting, which I started the same day I finished MBK so I could keep it going.  I’m proud of myself, both for maintaining it as long as I have and for finding a writing routine that works for me and will allow me to keep it going indefinitely (or at least until I finish TWWBW, which is my goal).

Reaching this level of consistency is a big deal for me because I haven’t always been disciplined enough to write regularly, let alone daily.  If you’re a long-time reader, you may remember the SAMS era, when I would sometimes go months without updating because I was so overwhelmed with life and didn’t have the time or energy to devote to writing fanfic.  I thought this would get better when I finished SAMS and life slowed down a little, but what followed was a year or so in which I hardly updated at all because I literally couldn’t focus on a single story long enough to get anywhere with it.  I flitted from story to story, starting drafts of what would become A Heart That Isn’t Mine and My Brother’s Keeper but struggling to continue them when I came to an obstacle.  I feel proud of the fact that I eventually did come back to both stories and finish them.  Ever since I got back into my writing groove with AHTIM, I’ve been pretty productive for the past four years.  I appreciate those of you who stuck around through the dry spell, as well as those of you who have discovered my site since.  Thanks for your support!

I had some time this week, so I made a video to commemorate and celebrate this milestone.  If you’re like me and enjoy “behind the scenes” stuff, you may be interested to see how a novel grows and changes over time. (Tip: If the video appears blurry on this page, open it in YouTube to play the HD version, which should be clear.)

 

 

 

I took a screenshot of each day of the streak in the version history of Google Docs to document my daily progress.  Since I write each story in one document instead of creating separate docs for each chapter, they are very large files and are slow to load.  On some days, the version history showed my edits in green the way it’s supposed to, and other days, it did not.  I don’t know why but assume it was a data issue from the files being so large.  You may have also noticed that on some days, I wrote several pages, and on others, I barely wrote several words.  There are chapters that I finished in a day and pages that took me over a week to fill.  That’s just how it goes.  But even when I was busy or tired or uninspired, I still opened the story and added something to it every day, and that’s how I’ve been able to continue updating every week.  I am starting to catch up to myself and am only a couple chapters ahead of what I’m posting today, so wish me a productive summer so I can build up my backlog of chapters before the school year starts again!

That being said, Chapter 35 of The World Will Be Waiting is up!  I had a lot of fun writing this chapter because it was different from the kind of stuff I usually write but also closer to my daily life as a teacher than the kind of stuff I usually write.  I guess there’s something to be said for the whole “write what you know” thing, although I’ve always preferred to look up what I don’t know and then write about that.  But after many years of writing heavy, angsty, life-or-death drama, it’s kind of a nice departure to write a story that’s a little happier and has more of a slice-of-life feel.  I never thought I would write a whole novel that fit that description – about Kevin, no less – but here I am, doing just that and loving it!  I guess I’ve learned something in the last 500+ days.  Here’s to 500 more!