Updates! WriYe and Writing

I've been working on my trilogy since February. I got off to a really slow start, but I've learned so much over the course of these past 5 months.

I've been keeping up with my progress on the National Writing Year forum, which is why you see me pump out a WriYe Blogging Circle post once a month. WriYe is also the reason my stories sidebar is filling up so well--I participated in a challenge called Laster Wriy'er Standing (LWS), which, as you can probably guess, involved submitting a piece and voting out someone every two weeks. The challenge provided a nice break from my trilogy, despite a few unsettling faults with the competition. Working with the same characters for so long has been really rewarding.

Another blurb about WriYe, it's Zombie July! I signed up for the challenge mistakenly, but once I found out what it was about, I decided to give it a try. I've never written a zombie story nor do I have an interest in zombies, but I have an idea for a zombie short that will hopefully see itself written in time this month. This month's blog post, in celebration of zombies, is about overused tropes, so stay tuned for my reply to that.

I'm also participating in July Camp to help me finish the final book of my trilogy (the first time I've ever participated in NaNo!). My recent move has taken my daily word count down by over 1K words, so I'm hoping to meet my goal so I can be free to write and edit casually. It's been a busy month!

Fresh Habits

• I've watched myself grow from a few words a day to up to 5000 at home. This habit reset each month as I started a new project. Currently, I am pumping out 2000 words a day.
• Went from writing 1/2 - 3/4 a chapter a day to writing 2 chapters a day.
• Went from writing a few times a week to every day.
• I've learned a lot from research and small critiques, but the biggest thing that improved my writing was READING!
• From critiques, I learned that I am my best (and worst) critic--if I put my mind to it, I can think of all the questions a reader might come up with, and this helps sort through rude or unhelpful critiques.

Goals for July

• I hope to finish the final book of my trilogy so I can prepare for editing. (I'll be looking for beta readers, too!)
• Outline and write zombie short, Sometimes Poison is the Sweetest

The largest goal is, of course, to finish up this trilogy. I honestly can't wait to start editing! During that phase--after July--I'm also going to start outlining my next novel, which I've decided to save for my first NaNoWriMo.

Also, did you hear? Writer's Edit is hosting a giveaway that includes a chance at a free copy of Scrivener and other books!