Content Warning: Brief and vague mention of chronic illnesses and some of the side effects of them.
This is the main post where I'll update my progress on my writing goals throughout 2022. I'm participating in the Get Your Words Out Habit Challenge for the fifth time in a row this year. I pledged a goal of writing or working on writing at least 120 days during the year, which is the same goal I pledged the previous four years. I've also set a personal annual word count goal of trying to write at least 12,300 countable words over the course of the year. That is drastically reduced from my word count goal for last year, which is drastically reduced from the years before it. While I have met or exceeded my Get Your Words Out Goal for the previous three years, I only exceeded my word count goal for the first time in many years, and possibly ever, last year. It was a close thing, and I would not have achieved it if it had not been for a combination of circumstances, some of which were not good for me, and cannot continue in the new year. I'm going to try to track my progress for both my GYWO and word count goals here, as well as my progress in any other writing marathons I do throughout the year. This is the format I used for tracking throughout 2019-2021, with a few additions and modifications for tracking additional information and making some information easier for me to find, and I like it much better than what I was trying to do for tracking my writing on this blog in 2018. This format is much easier for me to use and it makes it easier for me to find and compare the information I'm looking for. For the sake of my spoons, I generally update the habit and marathon goals monthly on this website, as opposed to daily. The word count goal I sometimes update daily here, especially during Camp/NaNoWriMos, but other times I do it monthly. Even so, my progress may not always be reflected accurately in real-time both because I tend to track in multiple different places -- often with a piecemeal approach, and also because I have several chronic illnesses that eat up my time, energy, concentration, and memory.
Days Written or Worked on Writing in 2022:
January: 23
February: 20
March: 15
First Quarter: 58
April: 5
May: 4
June: 13
Second Quarter: 22
July: 17
August: 10
September: 10
Third Quarter: 37
October: 13
November: 10
December: 9
Fourth Quarter: 32
January: 2,608
September: 0
Date I Met my Get Your Words Out Goal for the Year: October 5th, 2022
Date I Met my Word Count Goal for the Year: I didn't.
Words Written in 2022:
January: 2,608
February: 658
March: 0
First Quarter: 3,266
April: 0
May: 0
June: 0
Second Quarter: 0
July: 574
August: 666
September: 0
Third Quarter: 1,240
October: 0
November: 0
December: 0
Fourth Quarter: 0
Date I Met my Get Your Words Out Goal for the Year: October 5th, 2022
Date I Met my Word Count Goal for the Year: I didn't.
Number of Days I Wrote or Worked on Writing in 2022 Total: 149
Number of Countable Words I Wrote in 2022 Total: 4,056
Other writing marathons that I'm planning on participating in in 2022:
April CampNaNoWriMo (goal 2,000 words): 0 words
July CampNaNoWriMo (goal 1,000 words): 574 words
August Get Your Words Out Mid-Year Marathon (I'll decide my goal then): Didn't participate, and I think it was actually in June or July
August Get Your Words Out Mid-Year Marathon (I'll decide my goal then): Didn't participate, and I think it was actually in June or July
3 Day Novel Labor Day Weekend (goal write a novel or novella over Labor Day Weekend): Unknown number of words, though I did write for it a little bit.
November NaNoWriMo (goal 500 words): Didn't participate.
Writing marathons that I'm not planning on participating in in 2022, but that I don't want to forget about:
The Artist's Way: (12 Week independent study writing program as laid out in the book of the same title by Julia Cameron. When I next attempt this, I'm planning on doing it during January, February, and March because that's the only three month stretch during the year that I don't generally participate in another writing marathon -- aside from GYWO, which can contain the other marathons within it). When I last attempted it, I realized that I should probably read the book all the way through once during the December before I attempt it, so that's something to bear in mind for the future.
The Writer's Games: I haven't actually tried these yet, and I'm not planning on participating in them this year, either, but I'm hoping to someday and I don't want to forget about them. So I'm mentioning them here as a reminder to myself.