I Want to Finish What I've Started: Author Edition 

New words this week : 2,931 words which is somewhat less than I'd hoped for, but not entirely unexpected.

WIPs worked on this week : 2, with no new WIPs (yay!)

This week was... a lot. Visit went okay, they flew home Sunday night. This morning my mother-in-law called to let us know that my father-in-law just tested positive for Covid. So far so good here, but I'm pretty frustrated that I'm going to have this hanging over my head for the next week or so until I either get sick or I don't.

The Old Guard

☆ food truck au : 2,349 words which brings the total to 67,708 words and is there really any feeling more frustrating than having all the motivation to write, and be entirely lacking the time?? Next chapter needs like another 1.5k to be done, and that's like. I could knock that out in a day under ideal circumstances, and circumstances so far have been very very far from ideal. But anyhow, there is now KISSING and I'm hoping to get it off to beta by the end of this week. I did some very rough math, and if I can continue at my current previous pace I will finish the final chapter by the end of March. The story takes place in the spring and I'm kind of caught up in the idea of posting it around that same time, so I hope I'm able to... I'd wanted to start posting mid-March, and I guess I could still do that even though I would definitely still have a few chapters left to write, but I really feel more comfortable waiting until I've got the whole thing done, even if "done" is just a first draft.

☆ werewolf au : 582 words which brings the total to 13,921 words and I was just reflecting earlier today that if I'd known how goddamn long food truck au was going to turn out to be, I would have started working on this one first. Ugh, I'm so desperate to write it, but I'm also really trying to avoid doing that thing where I start a dozen different things and don't actually finish any of them. My 300k of unfinished and unposted HP fic will absolutely haunt me until the end of time and I'm trying my best to not repeat that experience. SO. Mostly I'm just jotting down scene bits and plot ideas as they come to me so I don't lose them, and then using this as extra motivation to get me to finish the thing I am actually trying to finish.

 Update on things:

Thing One. I am obsessively running finances in order to determine whether I can afford to take early retirement. Werk is underwhelming.

Thing Two: Research which is putatively part of werk is, on the other hand, very whelming. If I didn't have werk, I could devote more time to it.

Thing Three: I am still planning the life of a selfpublished novelist. Another reason to retire.

Thing Four: The sister sends photos of her over-wintering in sunny Egypt every single gloomy January and beyond day. And there goes another reason to retire.

Thing Five: I have written 1,700 words of Dudley/Draco secretary fic omg. If I retired, I could write 17,000 words.

Thing Six: I watched Everest on iplayer. The book by Kracauer was gripping, and so is the movie. Studio sets, though, are studio sets. Still, I should be thankful they didn't expose actors to life-threatening conditions.

Thing Seven: T'older son's wedding looms.

Thing Eight: My own divorce looms. 

Thing Nine: The dog is a dog.

Thing Ten: And now I must really to bed.

New words this week : 8,320 words which is so good, y'all, I'm so happy.

WIPs worked on this week : 1, with no new WIPs (yay!)

Still exhausted, still snow (though a bunch melted today as we got above freezing for the first time in weeks!) and more progress was made.

The Old Guard

☆ food truck au : 8,320 words which brings the total to 65,359 words and look at this! For the second week in a row I managed to keep my focus to one single WIP, I finished and sent off TWO chapters to my beta, and things are still rolling along! I'm now past the Confession of Feels and the chapter I'm working on finishing off now has kissing and I'm giddy over it. I took a little bit of a break today, poking at it a little and only making a few hundred words, but am hoping for a lot of words tomorrow. I will have houseguests arriving on Thursday and staying through Sunday, so I'm anticipating a much less productive writing week. Hoping to still be able to get the next chapter finished off, though. It's at 4200 words and I think it will end up around 7k, so that's entirely within reach if I can keep my focus on it and not wander off to later parts of the story.