January was a relatively light writing month thanks to gearing back up from the holiday at the beginning (which amounted to me cleaning up my office for most of the week) and a week-long illness at the end that left me unable to focus on anything beyond video games. I did make some progress on BLOOD OF SALT, TEARS OF PEARL, though I still haven’t managed to get to the end of the damn thing. Beyond that, I wrote a few posts for my gaming blog, Cartridges & Catacombs, and so far, I’m managing a consistent schedule for that.

Word Counts in January:

Blog/Newsletter: 1585

Cartridges & Catacombs: 4531

Patreon: 415

BLOOD OF SALT, TEARS OF PEARL: 8319

Other: 533

Total Words Written in January: 15,383

Total Words Written in 2020: 15,383

Plans for February:

I plan to finish BLOOD OF SALT, TEARS OF PEARL this month, for real this time. I’m currently at 239,280 words, with about three-ish chapters left to write. My average chapter length is roughly 7,000 words, so I’m looking at about 260,000 words for the first draft, most likely. If I manage to write every weekday between now and the end of the month, I should be able to finish the draft before March, barring any sudden illnesses or disasters. I’m busy with non-profit work still, but I’m going to do a better job of managing that this year so that it doesn’t interfere as much with my writing. My focus this year is definitely balance.

Patreon:

I posted a couple of excerpts and a behind-the-scenes look on Patreon this month:

EXCERPT: Contingency

EXCERPT+: Lost Youth

BEHIND-THE-SCENES:  Plotting an Ending

Cartridges & Catacombs:

I’m trying to commit to a regular posting schedule for this first full calendar year of the blog, and right now, Friday looks like the best day to do my weekly recaps. Once I get into a good groove with posting regularly each Friday, I may start adding more featurettes, like a D&D game diary. This month, I posted three new blog posts, branching out from Hearthstone a little bit. I feel like my post titles tell a little bit of their own story.

Games this Week…

Visions of N’Zoth (8.3)

Hearthstone, WoW, and ESO

Goodbye WoW, Hello ESO

Note: If anyone else out there is playing ESO, hit me up at @DarkLadyMoon