I officially finished the first draft of my novel on December 1st. 89, 685 words. It wasn't close to 95,000 because I had to subtract some short story words that I overlooked. There's much to do in the rewrite, like cutting excess words, redrafting scenes. Actually, the ending might need to be redone even though I took my best shot at it. I now know the general shape and structure of the novel and I'll revise from there.

My monthly charts. All year I've been using graph paper with vertical lines for daily word count. A quick glance across my bulletin boards gives me the story of my progress.

I started my novel during the last week in April, the last six days of the month, actually. Since inertia is my archenemy, I started out with only a page a day (minimum) to get me going.

April: 2,084 words in six days.

May: 9,979 words, 23 days of writing, 433 words per day average.

June: 16,239 words, 21 days of writing, 773 words per day average.

July: 13,482 words, 23 days of writing, 586 words per day average.

August: 11,857 words, 19 days of writing, 624 words per day average.

September: 3,855 words, 6 days of writing, 642 words per day average. (more on this horrible month below)

October: 18,644 words, 25 days of writing, 745 words per day average.

November: 12,431 words, 17 days of writing, 731 words per day average.

December 1st: 1,114 words.

89,685 words total divided by 141 writing days equals a 636 words per day average.

A couple of things strike me. I do so much better when I'm regular, er, with writing, that is. I can miss a day of writing and still be in the habit. Any more than two days missed and it's hard to get started again. The longest stretch of writing days happened in October (12 days). Usually I could keep writing for 5-7 days in a row before I missed a day.

The second thing is I can't believe how many days I did miss each month. I'm missing a week's worth of writing per month at the very least!

This tells me it would be better if I pushed at a higher daily word count. I didn't hit the 1,000 word mark as often as I would have liked. Eleven days in October, for example, I hit a thousand words or beyond.

I guess my goal here was to write a first draft of a novel with steady work. I suppose this is my baseline for future novels, or even for writing, generally. I want to write a novel in a shorter span of time.

Now as for September, my writing word count is actually higher but I had to subtract short story words. What you see is novel words, the definite low point, the point where I felt the novel was crap, a bore, dead and buried. And the downward spiral began in August. It's hard to break through that wall. I hope I can deal with it easier and quicker next time. As you see, I came back fighting in October, also known as the best word count month.

I feel ambitious and I would like to have the final draft of the novel done by Chistmas or the new year.

I tend to freeze up and get blocked on challenges like writing a novel in a month, although I would like to do that in the future. It's just after failure after failure, I had to find a different approach so I might be able to obtain such goals. Obviously, I'm better at persistent, daily progress, and the only way I'm going to make it at a novel a month is by working on the day to day writing. Punch it up, increase the word count, get things done.

I have been worried that I'd never be a deadline writer, however, this has been one great writing year for me. I write more often, I have a first draft of a novel. With persistence, I can only hope, will come the key to being a deadline writer.