January 2021 Update

Happy New Year!

Or, at least, I hope this new year will prove to be better than the previous one.

Regarding my previous update, I’m happy to tell you that I achieved both goals: I’ve published the list with my 12 favourite books/series of the year 2020 and I’ve commissioned a couple of artists. I hope I can show you their amazing work in the following months!

Working on the reference files during January has been very useful, since I’ve been able to clear my mind and fix some issues. I’ve done a lot of research, and I feel that I’ve overcome some obstacles and moved forward. Some days were a bit frustrating, because I spent hours looking for a document that, in the end, didn’t have the information some historians claimed it had. But I guess discovering what’s a rumour or a fact is also part of the process. I rested a bit after that exhausting experience and then I went back to writing. I even wrote some scenes (completely out of order, as always) and now one of my stories has a beginning and an end.

At the moment, I’m letting the new information and ideas marinate for a while before I continue, so I did some word counting again. The first time I did it was two months ago and I was surprised at the results: I’d written much more than I thought! I usually hate word-counting, but this is a more general approach, and I also include all the notes and research files. I think it’s good to acknowledge that, even if not all our work will be part of the final story, it still counts. So I went and checked Scrivener, and this is how it’s going:

• Heroes: 20000 (It was 14000 two months ago.)
• Fireflies: 17000 (It was 8500 two months ago.)
• Brothers: 24000 (It was 19000 two months ago.)
• Alcalá: 18000 (It was 5000 two months ago.)
• Oracle: 120000 (It was 99000 two months ago.)
• Academy: 30000 (It was 15000 two months ago.)
• Feathers: 8700
• Sanctuary: 35000 (It was 6000 two months ago.)

I can’t believe I’ve written so much in such a short period of time! And there was a noticeable increase in all projects but one because, as I said, I can’t follow a chronological order. In any case, I had my holidays during lockdown and did all that research for the reference files, so don’t expect this rhythm from me in the near future. Although I can’t help but notice that I’ve been doing better now that I don’t force myself to complete one single project from beginning to end, so I’m going to follow this chaotic approach until it stops working.

I’ve decided I don’t want New Year resolutions this year either because they only make me anxious and guilty, so I’m still keeping my eternal goal of fulfilling The Pact to Finish Something (with no deadline). Plus, my two Achievable Goals of the month will be to implement timelines in my projects and to update the character templates with the information from the reference files I created for artists.

Do you have any New Year resolutions? Are you recycling last year’s resolutions?