I Will Write 500 words, and I will Write 500 More: 4

How did you get on with your writing goals in March?

I achieved a total of 13,628 words and wrote on 21 days. For days I did write on I averaged 649 words per day. for the full month the average drops to 439 words per day.
On five days I achieved 1000+ words

If I didn't write another thing this year my average daily word count for the year would be still be 105.

Over the month I posted 29 times to Hive and these were a mix of stories, poems, prompt responses, articles, and blog posts about events.

While disappointed to miss my 500 words per day target I am happy with the consistency of writing and posting, and at the same time content that there are just some days when writing doesn't happen.

I also think that if it wasn't for additional health issues this month I'd have probably hit target.

As I've mentioned before, I have ME/CFS. With this I have to budget my energy to achieve the essentials. My best time of day is the morning and, when I can use that time to write, I generally have a good writing day. But as it's my best time of day it is also when I will plan to achieve important tasks which often results in writing being something which needs to occur later on, when fatigue and brain fog have set in.

Several times through the month I found myself sat with writing time, but the mental effort was just too great. This was exacerbated as mid way through the month I injured my shoulder and have trapped nerves. This has made the physical act of writing difficult, due to the pain, and required use of painkillers which, apart from deadening the pain, made focusing and holding coherent thoughts, a difficult process.

It has also led to engagement being down with the three main communities I post in, @blockchainpoets, @theinkwell, & @scholarandscribe. Though I have kept mostly up to date with @dreemport.

I aim to do better this month.

I've been to the physio twice and am being a good boy and doing my exercises and the shoulder is moving in the right direction, hopefully by the end of the month I'll be back to full utility.

One of the highlights of the month did get written about in a post, but I'll mention again here how lovely it was to meet a couple if Hivers (Hivians, Bees?) in person. @bitterirony and @alessandrawhite were a joy to spend some time with, even though neither post to Hive very regularly.

Not all of my writing for the month was posted to Hive, and not all I posted was written this month. I continue to use stories and poems I have written over the years to provide content, though they always end up with edits as I am an inveterate tinkerer when it comes to my writing.

Of the none published things written most of it related to my essays for From This Side of the Pond. I finally finished my essay on Georgia, though I'm not happy with the ending at this point, and am now mid-way through writing about the Army Corp of Engineers and dams - a fascinating topic.

For next month I plan to: hit my 500wpd target; average 1 post per day; create a post with Aureal.

I also thought this would be a good post to track my Hive and HBD. As of today I have 401.058 Hive. 25 is received delegation (thankyou @shadowspub) and 351 is delegated out.
I have 79.585 HBD, which is all in savings. At 20% APR why wouldn't I?

How did you do with your plans in March?

Drop a message below and let us know.

Some will know The Proclaimers song I’m Gonna Be (500 miles). Well, it’s still the theme for this writing year: ‘and I will write 500 words, and I will write 500 more’.

words by stuartcturnbull, art by JonHoefer on Pixabay