Six weeks ago, I set up a personal writing challenge bigger than I have ever tried to accomplish:
One chapter every weekday for six weeks. This boils down through basic math to thirty chapters. I could have cheated and claimed twenty nine, considering the holiday but that wasn't in my original stipulation.
In that six weeks, I managed to take a three day vacation, contact fifteen agents, attend a graduation, find out and deal with the fact that my daughter has partial deafness, and walk twenty miles to fight cancer.
All of these things have pushed my writing pretty far away from my priority list and here I am on the other side of this personal challenge, looking back at the marathon of words asking myself, "How well did I do?"
Just the other night, I was nearing the end of the line and only had twenty seven chapters of the thirty complete. Early into the challenge I fell behind. I fought against that struggle and I pulled a chapter ahead. Of course, though I tried, I couldn't maintain that lead. Just over a week ago, I fell very far behind and my determination pushed me to double my workload, putting me closer to being on the right track but I couldn't reach that point, no matter how hard I reached.
The last few hours ticked by and my keyboard was beginning to develop friction burns, wearing off the letters while I pounded out chapter after chapter. It was very strenuous but here I am, Officially on day thirty-one.
And I am here with thirty glorious chapters under my belt. These thirty chapters are for the second book in my SALAGIA chronicles which means the second book in my series is nearly complete.
I'm not going to lie, I feel pretty damned accomplished right now. I look along the story I spent the last month crafting and I see a strong improvement in writing and in storytelling. This gives me hope.
Hope that soon, an agent will find value enough in my books to help me share my tales with the rest of the world.
