It’s hard sometimes to look back and go ‘well hell. I was supposed to be done with that by now.’ And yet that’s what I ended up doing this last week while I was on vacation visiting my best friend. I’ve been trying to write a novel for the last four years, and every year I always let life or other things get in the way of finishing. I don’t set it as a priority, and that’s my main problem. Though the major secondary problem is that I haven’t been setting time aside to write.

I got a new job a couple months ago and that had completely side tracked me as well, but that’s an excuse. And not a very good one. Though that’s also neither here nor there.

After talking to my friend, and realizing that I had written 30,000 words and the story didn’t go anywhere, or do anything. And staring at this large piece of work that’s been sitting for what feels like forever, it felt like a chore to try and work on it. Like I was tied down and chained to keep it because it’s what I have to show for the last four years. But it made me want to work on it even less for that too, because I wasn’t sure how to salvage it with how backed into a corner the main character was now.

So, with the encouragement of my friend, I scrapped all of it but the treatment and outline. We reworked some of story so it will hopefully flow a little better too as I write it. And we’ve set up goals for me to meet, the  main being a minimum of 667 words a day, but 1,000 if I can get it there. My goal as a whole is to have the rough draft done by Christmas. That starting in 2014 I can do revisions and edits and have it finished before this time next year.

It might not seem like a lot, or a strict deadline, but I have issues trying to follow most deadlines, and I will be doing my best to keep up with all of my goals. And hopefully I will update with better progress as the year gets closer to closing.