My Christmas Vacation

Monday, January 11, 2016

Written by Kodi Wolf at 8:21 AM

What do you do when your plans fly out the window? Do you chase after them and try to hold onto them no matter the cost? Or do you calmly wave goodbye and wish them good luck on their journey and hope you see them again soon?

I had several projects I wanted to accomplish over the Christmas holiday. My wife took two weeks off from work and I was excited. All those things we'd been putting off for one reason or another were finally going to get some attention. I figured we could spend the first couple days lounging, then get those "to-do's" checked off with just a few days of dedicated effort, and then spend the rest of the time just playing games and kicking back.

Instead, I ended up getting sick the second day, most likely from a virus, but then it turned into bronchitis. Three weeks and two rounds of antibiotics later, I'm still feeling tired and not up to much.

But it wasn't a total loss. Even though we didn't get to do any of the things we'd planned, we did spend all our time together and just relaxed, which we really needed after the past few months. Things have been crazy for Corene at work, and I've been feeling the stress of running a new business while also trying to kickstart my writing and make it a high priority rather than that thing I indulge in after I've gotten all the "real" work done.

So, I might not have gotten everything I wanted for Christmas vacation, but maybe I got what I needed. It's a thought anyway.

Now I'm just trying to get back into the swing of things. I had a nice writing streak going in December (until being sick finally got the better of me) and I really want to pick up where I left off.

I don't really do New Year's resolutions, but my #1 goal for January is to get that momentum back and build up another streak.

Wish me luck. :)

Music for Lights of Life

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Written by Kodi Wolf at 7:23 AM

It's really weird the little Internet paths I take.

I'd been working on the outline for Lights of Life all morning yesterday and needed a break while I had something to eat. So I put on RuPaul's Drag Race and at the end they played a snippet of one of RuPaul's songs (The Beginning) that I wanted to hear more of, so I looked it up on YouTube and played it a couple times (I like it, but I'm not sure I want to own it).

Then I decided it's been a while since I played anything from my favorites playlist, so I looked at it and played Lean On by Major Lazer & DJ Snake (feat. MØ) and I had the same thought I've had in the past, which is that the singer in the video looks like a cross between Melanie C and Adrienne Wilkinson (Livia/Eve from Xena).

Well, I haven't checked out anything from Melanie C in years, so I looked her up and found her YouTube channel and a song I hadn't heard before (Think About It) automatically played on the main page.

As soon as I heard the lyrics, I realized it made the perfect theme song for Jess and Kaylee's first time, sung from Jess's POV. It fits exactly how I want to portray Jess's emotions at that moment when she decides to stop fighting her heart and throw caution to the wind and just go for it.

All the editing and brainstorming I've been doing for the changes I want to make to Lights have put me in a more analytical mode, which has left me worried about whether I'm losing the romance. I think the changes I'm making are good changes and will improve the story, but being focused on the structure of when events take place has sort of taken me away from feeling the emotions of the scenes themselves.

This song has totally brought me back to how I've always felt about Jess and Kaylee as a couple. So I think I just need to relax and trust that when I'm actually writing the scenes (rather than organizing them), I'll remember who they are as a couple and that will come through in my writing.

And definitely make sure to actually watch the video. She's fuckin' hot. :) And she totally reminds me of a cross between Eliza Dushku from Dollhouse (with all the costume changes) and Bo from Lost Girl (it's the dark eye make-up).

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

I know I'll be playing this song a lot. :)

Finally Finding My Groove At 40

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Written by Kodi Wolf at 5:11 AM

I turned 40 today. Most people I know who have turned 40 seemed to freak out about it, but I just can't stop smiling. :)

I'm frickin' 40 years old. How cool is that? :)

I think one of the reasons I'm in such a good mood is because I seem to have finally figured out my writing.

The new system I've come up with has enabled me to make real progress on my stories these past couple months, rather than the kind of hit or miss stuff I was doing before, where I was just jotting down my notes every now and then or writing only when a scene came to me (which hadn't been happening as often as it used to; I think the takeaway there is, "Use it or lose it"). Now, I'm getting all kinds of scenes in my head while I'm brainstorming and I'm learning I can be creative even when I feel like crap.

And having made all this progress on Lights in such a short amount of time has kept me really excited and motivated about getting the outline finished and starting in on the 'real' writing. And then that leads me to thinking about how cool it will be to not only finish another one of my novels, but also use this system on the rest of my books, and I just can't wait. :)

I so want to finish all my stories. I come across articles all the time about 'planning your author career' and I'm just like, "I've already got enough novels to last me into my sixties, so I think I've got that one covered, thanks." :)

As a birthday present to myself, I'm going to try to continue my current 33-day writing streak and write every day for my birthday month. I'm a little afraid of jinxing myself by even writing that down, but I really want to do it. Even with the extra day from it being a Leap Year, it's still the shortest month of the year, so it's more doable than any other month.

I so don't want to break my streak for February. I think I'd be okay if I broke it sometime in March (even March 1), but I really want February to remain intact.

Wish me luck. :)

February's Writing Goal Results

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Written by Kodi Wolf at 6:18 PM

I did it. I brainstormed on Lights of Life and wrote at least 500 words every day for the month of February.

My total word count was 20,339, which averages out to 701 words per day. My lowest words per day was 509 and my highest was 1,337.

The main thing I learned is that I need to write every day. I feel more like me when I'm writing. It also solidified the lesson that I can be creative even when I'm in pain and groggy from drugs. I'm not as creative and it can be quite a struggle to make my brain work, but in 500 words I can usually come up with at least one little thing that makes me feel like it was worth the 10-15 minutes of effort (and then I can comfortably go back to being brain dead).

My new goal for March is to work on the outline for Lights every day. I want to create a scene by scene synopsis that I can use to guide me in writing the rest of the story (and complete my previous rewrites). I've already done some work on the outline and it's been so cool to see the story come together, but I know it will be more difficult than the brainstorming has been. Based on my records for February, I was able to knock out 500 words in as little as 11 minutes, but on days where I worked on the outline or did research, the time increased to as much as 4 hours.

Organizing scenes to create a blueprint for my writing will take more thought and a lot more decision making, so I'll need to be careful of decision fatigue and burnout. Doing my 500 words every day always felt like a win, even when it was hard. I want to feel the same way as I work on the outline. I have a few ideas about how I can do that, but it's probably going to take some tinkering, so I'll need to cut myself some slack.

Well, here we go...

March's Writing Goal Results

Monday, April 4, 2016

Written by Kodi Wolf at 7:19 PM

Success! I worked on the outline for Lights of Life every day for the month of March.

I tried not to make my daily word count quite as important for working on the outline as I had for the 500 words a day goal, but I still used it as a goal post overall. And even though I had 10 days where I wrote less than 500 words, my total word count was 20,090, which averages out to 648 words per day. My lowest words per day was 146 and my highest was 2,169 (that was actually on the last day because I really wanted to hit 20,000 words :) ).

I think what's been really cool is maintaining my streak (I'm at 87 days today). I even went on vacation for the last week of March and still got my writing done. Corene has been really supportive, too. I love it when she's all impressed at my year calendar on my corkboard that has all these days with green X's in a row (the first 8 days of January have black X's where I didn't write because I was sick, but the rest are all green).

My corkboard with my writing calendar and my favorite inspirational note I wrote for myself a few years ago. Oh, and the little scroll piece in the corner says, "Once Upon a Time..."
(Full-size image)

My goal for April is to continue working on the outline, which has been coming along great. I find I'm doing this sort of hybrid thing where I fill in a few blanks or little details in the outline that I pretty much already know, but just haven't written down yet in the right place. But then I'll come to a spot where I'm really not sure about something, so I go brainstorm. Then those bits get added into the outline, and then I'll start actually writing some of the text or dialogue.

It's been really cool to be scanning through my outline and find part or all of a scene already written. And then there are some synopses where I just can't wait to start writing the scene, so I know that part of the outline is done and I'm going to fly through it when it comes time to really focus on just the writing.

Well, here's hoping I can keep my streak going through April.

Expanding My Goals

Monday, May 2, 2016

Written by Kodi Wolf at 4:49 PM

Somehow, I've been managing to get my writing done every day despite issues with my back (and the drugs that go with it) and trying to get my jewelry website ready to begin accepting orders.

To recap, my goal for April was to work on the outline for Lights of Life every day, which doesn't require a specific word count. I could add 5 scenes to the outline, but if they only require a few dozen words each to describe them, I'll have done a lot of work without a lot of words to show for it. Or I could have a series of scenes that I've already written, but then spend an hour working out exactly where in the story they need to play out and end up with no new words written, but some necessary work accomplished.

Even so, I still ended up with a total word count of 15,147, which averages out to about 505 words per day. My lowest words per day was 12 and my highest was 1,626.

And because I've been successfully reaching my goals these past few months, what else can I do but try to shake things up a bit? :)

So, I've come up with a plan to expand my goals and see what more I can accomplish.

My main goal will still be to continue working on the outline for Lights of Life, since I'm hoping to finish that up either this month or next. This will be my main daily goal, so even if I don't get anything else done for the day, I'll still consider it a win as long as that bit gets done.

However, I want to add a few more monthly goals, stuff I can work on or not each day depending on how I feel, but that I want to see completed by the end of the month. These goals involve me working on several of my other stories, namely Xena: Warrior Slave, Prisoner of War, and A Bondage Primer. Technically, the first step is getting them into Scrivener and if that's all I accomplish this month, I'll be happy. But really, the goal is to figure out what the next step is for each story based on where I'm at in the creative process and then come up with a plan for getting it done.

For example, Warrior Slave only has a few more chapters that need to be written and then the story is done. Those chapters are vaguely outlined, as in I know what I want to have happen in general in each of those chapters, but I don't have a lot of specifics. So, I guess the next step is brainstorming.

For Prisoner of War, I have a timeline and fairly solid outline, so it probably just needs a little more fleshing out (mostly figuring out how I want to get certain scenes into the story), and then I can pretty much just focus on writing. So that means the next step is organizing the outline and timeline into specific scenes.

For A Bondage Primer, again, I have a vague timeline with only a couple things filled in, and the rest I probably need to spend several months brainstorming on, before I'll start to have a solid enough outline that I can continue writing. So, the next step is lots of brainstorming.

Awesome! I just completed half my goal for the month. Now all I have to do is come up with the action plans (and get the stories into Scrivener, of course).

Thanks. I just needed to say that out loud. :)

Accepting Success

Friday, June 3, 2016

Written by Kodi Wolf at 1:03 AM

So, I didn't work on the outline for Lights of Life every day the way I'd intended, so in that regard, I technically failed my goal. However, I did write every day and I got all my notes for Warrior Slave, Prisoner of War, and A Bondage Primer into Scrivener, so I definitely succeeded there. I also wrote actual scenes (6,725 words between A Bondage Primer and Lights of Life), which feels awesome.

My total word count for May was 20,338, which averages out to 656 words per day. My lowest words per day was 23 and my highest was 3,870.

You know, the first day I didn't work on Lights, I started to beat myself up about it. I mean that was my monthly goal and I had failed. But that was also the day I spent 5 1/2 hours writing 3,870 words for a new sex scene for A Bondage Primer.

When I realized what I was doing, I sort of laughed at myself and was just like, "What more do you want? So you didn't get a few notes down for Lights. Instead, you wrote an awesome sex scene, something you were a little worried you couldn't do anymore because it had been so long. So just shut the fuck up and enjoy the fact you're really writing again." :)

So, here's me shutting the fuck up and enjoying. :)

Oh, one more thing (sorry, I really can't shut up).

My goal for June is to sort of not have any goals, other than writing every day, whether that's adding to an outline, doing research, or writing actual story text. I just want to feel free to play in any of my worlds that call to me.

I do sort of have a half-assed goal of getting The Trine (and The Vampire Hunter and The Kindari Saga) into Scrivener, but I'm saving it for those times when I'm not in the mood to be creative, so I can just be analytical and put information where it needs to go. It usually doesn't take long for that to turn into inspiration, so I'll be off and running again, anyway. At least, that's what happened last night, which was cool.

All right, I'm off to go play. :)

Getting Back To My Roots

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Written by Kodi Wolf at 9:06 AM

I've decided to add a new category to my Progress Reports page, called Other Stories. I had originally intended to keep my fan fiction separate from my original stories, and they'll still be hosted on their respective sites, but since I'm tracking my writing on this site, I realized I do need to acknowledge when I'm working on any stories not listed on this site. I also have other original stories not listed here that I work on every now and then, so those will get lumped under that heading, as well.

I'm actually really excited to be working on my fan fiction again, particularly Xena: Warrior Slave. I'm sure most people gave me up for dead, that I'd abandoned that story, since it's been over 13 years since the last update, but I've never let it go. I was just stuck, but since I've been working on my writing skills, I was able to use those skills to figure out where I was going wrong and get past the block, which has been awesome. Since I got back to working on X:WS on the 15th, I've added over 8,000 words of new scenes (an average of about 1,450 words per day), which is about 17 pages. And according to my wife, I haven't lost my touch. :)

I'm really glad I decided to take the month off from goals (other than to write every day) and just play. I'm quite enjoying my vacation. :)

Results of My Writing Vacation

Friday, July 1, 2016

Written by Kodi Wolf at 9:16 AM

My goal for June (or lack thereof) was a resounding success. Taking the pressure off and just letting myself go wherever my muse dictated worked way better than I thought it would. I had expected to barely meet my monthly minimum of 15,000 words, but I ended up almost doubling it instead.

My total word count for June was 25,538, which averages out to 851 words per day. My lowest words per day was 34 and my highest was 5,073.

Over the past few months, my word counts have mostly been for brainstorming and outlining, which is necessary work for my stories, but I think I was getting a little burned out on those activities.

For June, out of those 25,000 words, nearly 15,000 went towards actual scenes for Xena: Warrior Slave (which works out to 36 pages), and another 3,900 went to scenes for A Bondage Primer (both continuing Day 11, as well as writing scenes that will happen much later). That means about 75% of my output went to creative writing rather than planning, and that has made me feel so much better about my ability to write (weird how that doubt still creeps in sometimes).

On one day alone, I wrote 5,073 words for Warrior Slave. Granted, it took me almost 9 hours spread throughout the day to do that, but it felt amazing to have the words just flowing like that.

Even better, with all the work I did on X:WS (which includes another 2,300 words in outline notes), I'm pretty well set up to write the rest of the story (that is, when I get back to it, since I plan to take a break from it for now).

So with all that, June has been my best month yet this year.

Which leads me into my plans for July. You'd think I'd want to stick with the open-ended goal stuff, since it worked so well, but I actually don't. My takeaway isn't that I don't want or need goals. It's that I really want to write, so that's what I'm going to focus on for this month.

My goal for July is to write as much story text as I can for Lights of Life based on all the previous outlining work I've done, and only brainstorm and outline if I get stuck.

Oh, and I never really got around to getting any of my other stories into Scrivener, so I'll keep that as a backup goal for when I just can't muster the energy to be creative.

Well, I hope everyone has a great 4th of July weekend (or if you don't celebrate, just have a great weekend).

As Long As I'm Writing

Monday, August 1, 2016

Written by Kodi Wolf at 7:14 PM

July was my weirdest writing month yet. It was also the best, which I didn't think it would be at first. For the first two weeks, I kept trying to force myself to work on Lights of Life with little success. I wasn't sure if it was because I was coming off a long weekend with my wife for the 4th of July holiday (and I'm not talking about drinking, I don't drink, I just mean getting to relax with my wife, so I was in 'chill' mode), or if I was still dealing with the effects of my flu-like period, or what, but I just couldn't get into the writing. For those first 14 days, my average daily word count was only 227.

Then I realized what I really wanted was to be working on a sex story. I thoroughly enjoyed all the work I did on Warrior Slave in June and my head was still there, though not necessarily with that story. That's when I started working on A Bondage Primer, and holy shit, did my word count go up. For the last 17 days of July, my average daily word count was 2,455.

Even with those first two weeks of less than stellar numbers, I still ended up with a total word count of 44,922, which averages out to 1,449 words per day. My lowest words per day was 1 and my highest was 6,169. (The '1' day was for revisions, where I cut as much as I added.)

Out of those nearly 45,000 words, almost 35,000 were for story text, which works out to about 84 pages. I've actually completed Days 11-14 and I'm all set up to start Day 15 (they're not posted yet, I need to make a few more revisions and then get them sent off to my beta-readers).

So, even though I didn't necessarily achieve my goal of finishing up the outline for Lights, I've decided that as long as I'm writing, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to beat myself up for writing 45,000 words just because it was on a different story than I intended.

My goal for August is to just keep riding this wave for as long as it lasts. I've done a ton of brainstorming for ABP with my wife these past couple months, and I have a really clear idea of where I'm going with the story overall now. I have specific milestones for the story's progression, so what seemed like an insurmountable task before, now feels completely doable. I feel like I have a roadmap now, so I only have to brainstorm little snippets to get from point A to point B within the larger story structure, and that has made a big difference. Plus, my wife is enjoying the story as much as I am, so I have plenty of encouragement to keep writing until I finish a scene so I can send it to her for a first beta.

Here's hoping for another successful month of writing. (My secret goal is to hit 50,000 words, since that would be equivalent to a NaNo month and I haven't completed one of those yet.)

I Did NaNo In August

Saturday, September 3, 2016

Written by Kodi Wolf at 5:57 PM

August was an awesome writing month. I even surpassed my secret goal of hitting 50,000 words, which is what you need to do to win NaNo. This is the level I've been wanting to write at for years. To put it into perspective, if I could do this every month, I'd be finishing a 150,000-word novel every 3 months. Of course, that doesn't take into account revisions, but still. It's fun to dream. :)

My total word count for August was 57,791, which averages out to 1,864 words per day. My lowest words per day was 143 and my highest was 4,743.

Out of those nearly 58,000 words, over 52,000 were actual scenes (that's 90%), which is why I have 9 new days for A Bondage Primer that I've just sent off to BetaWolf. I'm hoping to be able to start posting the days by the start of next month (it all depends on what kind of critiques I get back and how much editing I need to do).

With the new chapters, I've almost quadrupled the amount of story that was there, going from about 29,000 words to over 113,000 in just a couple months.

The scary part is that at 180 days/chapters, we're only one-tenth of the way through the story. The cool part is that I know what I need to write for the next 7 days of story and I've been able to brainstorm content at each juncture to keep me going, so I'm still riding this wave. :)

My goal for September is the same as last month. Keep going as long as I can. (And maybe I can hit 60,000 words in a month.)

Wish me luck. :)

Just Keep Writing

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Written by Kodi Wolf at 8:19 AM

So I didn't hit 60,000 words (not even close), but I didn't do too badly either. Especially since I had stuff in beta, which always throws me off my stride. I just have a hard time being creative and moving forward when I'm also trying to take in critiques and make revisions. Since most of my beta-readers haven't even gotten back to me, I'm guessing this month might be more of the same.

My total word count for September was 26,253, which averages out to 875 words per day. My lowest words per day was 22 and my highest was 3,059.

My goal for October is to just keep writing.

So that's what I'm going to go do. :)

Just One Goal - Writing

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Written by Kodi Wolf at 1:03 PM

October was a pretty good writing month. I even started playing in a new fandom (Supergirl). I'm also learning I can write stuff out of order when I'm stuck to keep the words flowing and come back to what I'm stuck on afterwards, rather than forcing myself to write linearly. And I can always revise the later stuff I wrote to match up with what I didn't know I was going to write for the earlier bits. Knowing I don't have to stop just because I'm stuck has really kept my word count up and reduced my stressing about not knowing what to write because there's always something else I do know how to write.

My total word count for October was 38,910, which averages out to 1,255 words per day. My lowest words per day was 154 and my highest was 3,811.

I think I'm going to stop doing the monthly goal thing for now, since it's been the same one every month since August: Write as much as I can every day with a bare minimum of 500 words/day (approximately 15,000 words/month). Though in actuality, I've been striving for 1,000 words/day and 30,000 words/month. It's just that keeping 500 words/day as the stated goal lets me off the hook when I'm having a bad day, whether physically, mentally, or emotionally, and I've found I do better when I feel like I'm achieving my goals than when I feel like I'm falling behind. Apparently, fear of failure is not a motivator for me, but continued success is.

Well, I'm off to write.

November's Writing Stats

Sunday, December 4, 2016

Written by Kodi Wolf at 11:58 PM

November was fun. I kept my daily average word count above 1,000. I messed with my word count spread sheets so they now keep a running total/average for my high, low, and average word counts (instead of me having to use a calculator to figure that out each time). I also created some calendars in Excel to help me keep track of events for A Bondage Primer, since that story is fucking massive.

My total word count for November was 33,381, which averages out to 1,113 words per day. My lowest words per day was 214 and my highest was 5,512.

I'd also like to update everyone regarding the new chapters I have for A Bondage Primer. The reason I haven't posted anything is because most of my beta-readers have been really busy and so far I've only received critiques from one of them, which isn't enough for me to feel confident that the chapters are ready to be released into the world. And of course, now we're heading into the holiday season, so it's probably going to be even longer before I hear from anyone. Rest assured, I'll start posting the new chapters as soon as they're ready.