This should have been posted two weeks ago, but I’ve been busy with work and trying to sell  a house.

I entered September only a day behind on the year for the 2024 words per day in 2024 challenge.

Then classes started.

I have seven straight hours of class and labs on Monday, and seven and a half on Tuesday. I get out at eight on Monday. Tuesday, I get out oat five after nine. That’s assuming the students take the entire lab period ot finish. Until this week, they have.

then I have an nhour and a half drive home. I could make it a little quicker than that, but I go home a different way after dark. The way I come in to work after leaving the post office is too narrow. No shoulder, drop-offs, and too many deer and feral hogs. I prefer not to take a chance on large animals in the road when I have no where to go.

So my class schedule has cut into my writing now that we are in the swing of things.

I finished September with 50,617 words. That’s an average of 1687 words per day.

That’s my worst month yet.

I’m going to have to step things up for the rest of theh year if I’m going to win this challenge.

Of course, even if I don’t, I will have had my most productive year ever. In other words, I will have failed to success.

I finished two short stories and a novella in September. Plus I made progress on what is turningout to be a novel. It’s the current work in pprogress. I have two more short stories that I’ll have to write this month, as well as my zine for REHUPA.

Even if I don’t meet the challenge, the year will have turned out to be a success.

Yeah, I know, it’s the middle of September. I’m a little late getting this up. I’m now a full time university faculty member, plus I still have my two part-time gigs, at least for a while.

I ended August with a total word count of 67,138 words, which comes out to an average of 2166 words per day. That was my best month so far this year.

I started off a bit ahead for September, since the first two days were a holiday weekend, but I’m a day behind now. That’s because I only hit a little over a thousand words per day this past week. Labs started was one of the main reasons. I have lab until eight or nine two nights a week, which means those days the word count probably won’t be but about a thousand or so.

We’ll see how the month ends. I’m going to have to fit in at least two thousand words somewhere else in the week.

The other news is that my story “When the Cows Come Home”, which appeared in Pulphouse a few months ago, has been reprinted. It’s available in An Afterlife of Really Creepy Stories edited by Dean Wesley Smith. It’s available at the Pulphouse Store. Just click the link.

Back in the last part of June and into July, I submitted six stories to six anthologies. These were themed anthologies, and to be eligible to submit, you  had to sign up for some writing workshops that focused on these anthologies.

I have gotten responses from the editors of four of them. I haven’t heard from the editors of the toher two yet. One of the anthologies was coedited, and the other was edited solely by one of the coeditors. In other words, that editor was involved in two anthologies.

I also know that editor was been slammed with some things that are taking up most of said editor’s time. This editor is also a writer who is posting daily to a closed group how they are doing in a challenge. The other writers taking part in the challenge, which is can you write as many or more words than this writer in a given period of time, are the ones getting the updates.

So far, I’ve gotten rejections from the editors.

However, I’ve also gotten positive feedback on what I submitted as well as some information ofn what didn’t work for some of the editors. That’s a win, as far as I’m concerned.

I’m not sure where I’m going to send the stories I’ve gotten back. I might put them in a collection myself. We’ll see.

I’m doing a writing challenge to write 2024 words per day, on average, in 2024. I got behind at the beginning of July and stayed behind the entire month up until the last day of the month. I ended the month with an average for July of 2025 words. I am still about three and a half days behind where I need to be for the year. If I can pull ahead this month, it will give me some cushion going into the fall.

I finished half a dozen short stories and a novella, plus I started another novella. I need to carve out time to publsih the novellas. The short stories are under submission.

I posted a couple of days ago about starting a new academic job. Classes start two weeks from tomorrow. I don’t have a schedule yet of when I’ll be teaching, other than it will be in the afternoons and probably only three days a week. Visiitng faculty, which is what this position is, don’t have to serve on committees, do public outreach, or other such activities.

What does this mean for the writing?

It means I am going to have to manage my time a lot better than I am now. I not only can do it, I need to do a better job of not wasting time. I am going to double down on writing. I will still have some time in the day to write. I just need to make sure I reserve that time for writing.

I was behind on my 2024 words per day in June for all but three days. Those days would be June 1, 29, and 30. Those last two days were marathon days, both over five thousand words. I finished a novella and two shourt stories last weekend. It was exhilarating but exhausting.

So I managed to end the month with an average of 2185 words per day.

I’m still behind on the year, but that will help me catch up. I need to add a apge in the spreadsheet where I’m tracking all of this that will calculate the average for the year in addition to the individual pages for each month.

I also finished three ot her short stories.  All of the stories have been submitted to an anthology project I mentioned in a previous post. The anthology themes ahve been ghosts and taverns, cozy mystery, military science fiction, and Regency fantasy. I’ve got a mystery science fiction storyo to write this week. Next week will be a Halloween themed anthology.

The two challenging stories were the cozy mystery because I don’t read  any of them. It had to be set at a beach of some sort, which made it a little more challenging.

The big challenge, though, was the Regency fantasy. Regency is a huge subgenre of romance, although the editor’s video said rmonace didn’t have to be present as long as the focus was on relationships. I did my best, but I cheated a little. I had my protagonist being taken from our world to a Regency that never existed.

We’ll see what the editor said.

I did enjoy writing outside my comfort zone. It was fun. Stressful, but fun. If nothing else, if forced me to stretch myself as a writer, and to do it under deadline.

First, the good news. I think I mentioned this in a previous post but was vague because at the time I hadn’t signed the contract. But that has happened, so I feel free to announce that I have placed a story at Pulphouse fiction magazine. It will be the first story in next motth’s issue. It’s a little different from what I usually write. I’d like to thank editor Dean Wesley Smith for publishing it.

I’ve seen a cover mockup, but since it was prelimnary, I’ll not post it. I’ll post the cover and a link to the issue when it goes on sale.

As for the 2024 words a day in 2024, March started out strong. Then my son came home on Spring Break for a few days. I spent time with him rather than write. The last week of the month, I was on the road a bit and didn’t manage to get caught up. I finished the month with an average of 1,798 words per day. I’m in this challenge for a year, so I’ve got some time to catch up on that average. April has been more on the road than not, so I’m pretty far behind as I write these words.

There is still twenty days to go in the month, so I’ve got time to catch up. Fortunately, blog posts count for the challenge.