one word at a time

February was going to be my editing month for Ilyum I.

It was. I did a really good job for the first two or three weeks. And then some stuff came up (the big thing being that we were in the process of buying a house, something I may talk about another time). I decided okay, I can extend editing into March. Have it done by April and switch gears to writing again before revising.

It’s April. I’m still finishing up hand editing my printed out copy of Ilyum I, I’ve got another 50 or so pages left. And that’s okay. We had a lot going on, and then on top of it I got sick with a cold the last week of March (I did take a COVID test. It did come back negative).

I’m a little disappointed at not being where I had wanted/planned to be at this point (working on Ilyum II), but all of my deadlines are self imposed. Everything at this point is allowed to be as flexible as I need it to be for my own physical and mental well-being.

I do want to still try to work on Ilyum II this month, though I think it’ll be more of the planning/plotting than actually writing sort of work.

In May, I’m going to switch gears to write a short story about mermaids as that’s something I like to do in the spirit of mer-may.

June will likely be revisions for Ilyum I. July might be trying to write out more of the story. August will likely be a break before going at Ilyum I again in September. And October I’m going to use as prep for NaNo, though as it stands right now I am not sure what I will be working on come November. Maybe it’ll be a draft of Ilyum II or maybe it’ll be something completely out of nowhere like Verity back in 2020.

The point is I have goals with my writing and they’re changing and I’m adapting them as I need to. They’re not quite where they were three months ago at the start of the year, but that’s okay.

At the end of the day, I’m okay with that because what matters is, even when I have to take breaks, I’m still working on it. I’m not completely setting it aside and forgetting about it entirely.

After all, any bit of progress is still progress, even if it’s only one word at a time.