Act I: Completed

About three days ago I reached a milestone. I had written 20,000 words of my book. I was so excited and I still am when I look down at the word count box. I swear I never thought I would write that much on one thing. I was seriously doubtful that I would reach that length. I started this book way back in July of last year and there was only one page with about 300 words. I abandoned it a few times but I always came back to it. The latest time I came back to it I had about 15K. I’m not going to lie it felt like a chore to write it but then suddenly I started to get excited. I was getting to the parts I most wanted to write. One of my chapters reached 4K. I had set myself a goal of writing 2K but chapter 5 was probably my favorite to write. That chapter just flowed from my fingertips. Since then I’ve been writing steadily on it. I reached 21K today. I can reach my projected 65K in about sixty days if I write 800 a day and for the last three days I’ve done that.

 

I’m still making time for other things. I write on the manuscript while I wait for the Sims to load (They have bitten again. Alya just had a baby and Amina entered politics). I read about 40 minutes at night. On Tuesday I took the pretest for the HiSet (A equivalency test that replaced the GED here in Louisiana) and today I volunteered. I’m learning to schedule myself better. One of my nurses at the psych hospital told me that I need structure and she was right. When I got home without having to go to school any longer I craved the structure of the hospital. I’m extremely glad to have it back in some form. Generally I’m a mess without it. 

 

I also entered my short story, One Small Step, in the Critical Mass 2 contest presented by ArtSpace. I worked hard on it and it went through six drafts but I’m pretty happy with what I wrote. I don’t know if it’ll win but I’ll be extremely happy if it does. 2014 seems like it’ll be a good year for me. 2009-2013 were terrible years mostly in the summer when it seemed like bad things struck me and my family. But I think that ended around August after I got the news that my uterus was alright and the panic attack faded away. Hopefully these next few years will be good to me. I hope they’re good to you all as well.