I'm Back

​It's been a while since I've posted a new blog entry. I didn't plan on taking so much time off from blogging; it just worked out that way. I did do some work on the blog this summer, but I took a break from my self-imposed goal of posting every week.
 
Earlier this summer I copied all my blog posts into one long Word document. I had two reasons for doing that. First I wanted a copy of the entire blog saved. Secondly, I was curious about the word count and how many words I had written.
 
When I put the blog posts into Word, I noticed that there were grammar errors highlight by Word. I realized that I should probably go through and edit the blog. That project took longer than I thought it would. It was also a humbling experience, confronting myself with evidence that I'm not a perfect writer.  Really, I guess I was a bit sloppy at times. I do know the difference between they're and their, but my fingers apparently sometimes type out letters on their own volition.
 
There were more than just grammar problems also. So, there were times when I rewrote portions of some posts. For example, in one post I had talked about some of the things that had happened in the prior year. In talking about some sad things I mentioned a relationship I had been in that broke apart. I was focusing more on the breaking up part of the relationship. I didn't realize at the time that it could be taken as a comment that the whole relationship was sad. I reworded that section as that wasn't the case.
 
When you're pushing yourself to do something new there's always that inner voice telling you that you can't do and you'll be no good at it. That voice becomes louder or softer depending on how much you listen to it. After castigating myself for all my mistakes in the blog, the voice was loud. I didn't feel good about my writing and let the summer slip by without writing as much as I had hoped.
 
I wanted the word count off the blog so I could set some goals for this year. I wrote 33,670 words last year in the blog. I was pleasantly surprised. That's more than half of a novel, if I were writing fiction. I did want to try writing fiction this year to see if I enjoyed it. Having that benchmark of words gives me a goal. I'm going to try to write 36,500 words of fiction this year. Yeah, I picked that number because it's easy to calculate how many words per day that comes out to. I'm going to look at it more on a weekly basis, but it's something to shoot for.

My plan is to focus on short stories. I can vary my writing more and learn more about what I like to write that way. If I decided to write the "Great American Novel," I'd have less flexibility. Plus I can submit short stories for publication. It's the ultimate feedback, even if it is just a yes or no.
 
I want to keep this blog up. So I will be posting this year. I'll do my postings on Tuesdays as I've done before. I'm going to try posting every two weeks and see how that goes.