My Writing Stats for 2017

Monday, January 1, 2018

Written by Kodi Wolf at 11:13 AM

December was a bit of a struggle. It didn't help that I ended up in the ER again with another kidney stone, but mostly I think I just caught the holiday bug and wanted to goof off with my wife. But somehow I managed to get my writing done and still have a great vacation, since Corene was able to take a couple weeks off (which she doesn't have to go back to work until next week, so yay! :) ).

My total word count for December was 20,006, which averages out to 645 words per day. My lowest words per day was 91 and my highest was 2,314.

Despite all the medical crap, 2017 was another amazing year for me (including getting to see the total solar eclipse on my 13th wedding anniversary) and I'm happy to report that I still haven't broken my writing streak. I started that on January 9, 2016, which means it's been 724 days, including today.

My goal for 2018 is to just keep doing what I'm doing because it's obviously working. I'm writing and I'm really enjoying writing, which for me is the most important part. Getting my stories closer to being finished is just a bonus. :)

Anyway, here's a look at some of my statistics for 2017.

I ended up writing less total words than last year, but I met several other goals. I maintained a daily average of at least 500 words, I worked on a story every day, and I finally posted some new content.

Here's to writing and posting more new content in 2018.

Happy New Year, everyone. :)

Getting It Done Anyway

Saturday, February 3, 2018

Written by Kodi Wolf at 9:09 PM

January was kind of fucked up for me. Lots of medical stuff had me less than focused on my writing, but I made it a point to get my writing done anyway and Corene really helped me with that (she's an excellent brainstorming partner).

My total word count for January was 22,593, which averages out to 729 words per day. My lowest words per day was 80 and my highest was 2,593.

So, the medical drama.

After ending up in the ER in August and December from passing kidney stones last year, I finally got referred to a urologist who recommended lithotripsy. That's where they use ultrasound shockwaves to blast the stones into grit without cutting into you.

My last urologist never even mentioned it as an option, but I'm on Medicaid and I've found certain doctors tend to leave out options if they think Medicaid won't cover it. I definitely like this new doctor better.

Anyway, I had the procedure on Monday (January 29). It went well and I only had a little bruising (it looks like a red firework on the left side of my back). I had a 6mm and a 4mm stone that are now just grit, which I'm having to drink lots of water and do inversion therapy to flush them out. If I don't, they could act as nodes to form new crystals, which I really don't want.

Doing all that while having fibromyalgia has been the hardest part. I have to get myself into an inverted (head down, ass up) position for 30 minutes 2-3 times each day, which my muscles and neck are not happy about at all. I've pretty much felt like I'm in boot camp.

Plus I somehow strained my right bicep muscle in the middle of January, so that's made maneuvering into and holding that inverted position even more difficult (try lifting your body weight with one arm after doing a hundred pushups and you'll get an idea of how weak and sore my fibro muscles feel).

On the bright side, because of that muscle strain I was referred to an orthopedist who determined I don't have carpal tunnel (yay!), but instead have tenosynovitis, which is basically just inflammation (score another one for fibromyalgia).

Of course, for the lithotripsy, I had to go off all anti-inflammatory drugs, so I'm only just now getting back on ibuprofen. I also have hand exercises to do, which should help (haven't started them yet... I can only handle one medical thing at a time).

Anyway, so that was January.

I'm hoping February will let me settle back into a routine now that I've figured out how to do the inversion stuff a little better. We went out and bought an inversion table, which we'd been looking into before for Corene's back, so it isn't just for me (and it's been helping her, so that's cool).

My goals at this point are to do my medical stuff and get my writing done every day. I really don't want to break my streak over this.

Wish me luck. :)

More Medical Drama

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Written by Kodi Wolf at 2:57 PM

Sorry I'm so late with my monthly post. The medical drama just hasn't let up, so in order to keep up with my writing, I put everything else on the backburner, including this site and all the updates I had planned. Anyway, even though my Progress Reports page doesn't show that I've been writing every day (which I have), here are my stats.

My total word count for February was 16,149, which averages out to 577 words per day. My lowest words per day was 135 and my highest was 1,753.

So in my last post, I mentioned I passed a kidney stone in August and then again in December. Then I had lithotripsy to blast the remaining stones in January.

Well, February was inversion therapy month. I had to drink a ton of water (90-125oz/day) and then get my body into an inverted position (head down, ass up) for 30 minutes 2-3 times a day. I barely managed once a day by the second week because of how exhausting it was for my muscles to maintain that position, but at my follow-up with my urologist, he said I was all clear, so apparently I did enough. (Yay!)

Then came March and I got shingles.

In case you don't know (I didn't), shingles is the same virus as chicken pox. Once you've had chicken pox, the virus can enter your nervous system and continue to lie dormant inside you for years.

If for some reason it becomes active again (lowered immune system), you end up with shingles, which usually presents as a patch of blisters on only one side of your body that are incredibly painful and itchy. Shingles is also contagious, but it will only cause chicken pox if the recipient hasn't had it, not shingles.

After doing a little research, I think it's likely that the lithotripsy procedure and the toll the inversion therapy took on my body probably brought it on. The worst part was that it was on my face and ended up causing my left eye to swell completely shut for several days.

Because it affected my eye, I saw an ophthalmologist who prescribed some anti-bacterial eye ointment and as many drops as I could put in, since I couldn't blink (that's very bad for your eyes). My follow-up with him showed I had no damage from the shingles virus on my cornea, which was a real concern because I'm more susceptible due to already having cornea dystrophy.

Unfortunately, because the virus lives in your nerves and it specifically affected my ocular cranial nerves, I've been having eye pain that might possibly never go away. It's called postherpetic neuralgia (yay, another -algia to go with my fibromyalgia). I'm taking neurontin for a month and dosing on anti-inflammatories like I never have before in an attempt to lessen the long-term effects, but I won't really know if the pain is permanent for probably months.

What I have noticed is this weird tingling feeling in my left eyebrow that feels like a wisp of hair is being dragged across it every now and then. That side of my forehead and going up into my hair is a tad numb as well, so I probably do have some nerve damage. There's also what looks like some pink scarring on my forehead where the majority of the blisters were, but it's too soon to tell if that'll fade or not. I can still see, though, so that's all I really care about.

So, that's been my year so far.

On the bright side, I've been getting my writing done every day and I've even been maintaining a daily average above 500 words, which is one of my goals for the year.

March has actually been a pretty good writing month, but I'll talk more about that in next month's post, since this one has gotten so long.

Now I'm off to get my writing done for the day (I don't count these blog posts because they don't specifically give me any progress on my stories).

Trying To Finish Lights

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Written by Kodi Wolf at 6:48 PM

Despite all the medical drama of the past few months, March was my best month of writing so far this year. I think part of it was that I was trying to escape my painful reality as much as possible, but I was also making really good progress on the outline for Lights of Life, which kept me motivated to stick with it (with a few side trips here and there).

My total word count for March was 23,386, which averages out to 754 words per day. My lowest words per day was 82 and my highest was 2,148.

So, I don't think I've mentioned it yet (partly because I'm afraid of jinxing myself), but I decided back towards the end of February that the main goal I wanted to set for myself this year is to finish Lights of Life.

I'm not entirely sure why I picked that one, other than it sort of encapsulates the type of stories I want to be known for writing, which is sci-fi lesbian romance/erotica.

My other stories all add in other main elements. Prisoner of War is primarily erotica. The Vampire Hunter would probably be thrown into the horror/urban fantasy categories because of the contemporary vampires (even though I give them a sci-fi origin). New Gaia has a strong adventure plot. And A Bondage Primer has no sci-fi element at all, not to mention it's way too long to finish in a year (the same goes for the stories in the Uncharted section, which are mostly epically long series).

So far, it's been going a little slower than I'd thought it would. I'd really expected to have the outline done by now and already be working on the actual writing, but I know these things take the time they take.

This is technically the first time I've tried to do this (outline a story from beginning to end) and I think my estimates were just wildly optimistic. Well, okay, I've been doing this for ABP, but that's a massively long story and it doesn't have a specific plot like Lights does. ABP is a lot more freeform in most respects.

But I'm definitely making progress on Lights and that was my main goal, so my efforts are paying off, just not as fast as I'd hoped.

At this point, I'm looking to finish the outline by the end of May (though I'm secretly pushing for the end of April).

Wish me luck. :)

Still Outlining Lights

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Written by Kodi Wolf at 10:27 PM

I didn't quite get the outline finished for Lights of Life, but I'm close. I'm mostly just going back through it and filling in the remaining gaps and trying to work out the ending sequence of events, so I should be able to start writing the actual story text soon. I'm hoping that'll up my word count as well, since I seem to write for longer when I'm working on a scene.

My total word count for April was 24,074, which averages out to 802 words per day. My lowest words per day was 124 and my highest was 3,177.

I'm actually getting really excited about finishing the outline and starting on the actual writing. As I've gone back over my notes and outlines for scenes, I've really wanted to stop and work on them. But I also know I need to get the outline finished so I'm not flying blind. I've found it's rather demoralizing when I end up having to rewrite huge chunks because I've forgotten to include something important.

That's the problem I've been running into with all my stories and it's why they all stalled for about 15 years. I got to a point where I didn't know where I was going and then when I figured it out, I realized I needed to rewrite everything that had gone before because the next bits I wanted to write wouldn't make sense without the added setup.

Now that I've gotten 2+ years of daily writing under my belt, I'm hoping to focus that habit into working on my stories in a particular order that will get them done, including the rewrites.

So for Lights, that meant first going through my previous beta-reading comments and figuring out how to fix what some of my readers didn't like (but only where I agreed with them and thought the changes would improve the story).

Then I worked on outlining those changes while figuring out which bits of the original story I wanted to keep and which bits should be cut or rewritten.

And most recently, I've been outlining all the rest of the scenes to the end of the story so I'll know where I'm going when I finally get to the writing.

Doing all that prep work has already shown me where I can drop in bits of foreshadowing that were either lacking before or were in the wrong place.

I've also left a lot of the little details open so I know when I get to the actual writing of each scene, there'll still be plenty for me to discover to make the writing fun and interesting. My characters tend to throw me curve balls anyway, so giving myself that space to explore should hopefully keep me from freaking out when I inevitably go off script.

Well, back to work.

Finished the Outline for Lights

Friday, June 1, 2018

Written by Kodi Wolf at 11:42 PM

I did it. I finally finished the outline for Lights of Life. It was just under the wire at 11:46pm last night, but I completed it by the end of May, which was my goal. So yay!

My total word count for May was 33,030, which averages out to 1,065 words per day. My lowest words per day was 247 and my highest was 7,504.

And I know those 7,504 words look kind of impressive, but they were actually from two different writing sessions yesterday because my hours are a little weird. I wrote 2,924 words towards the end of my 'day,' which was actually yesterday morning, then wrote another 4,580 words after I woke up yesterday afternoon (I slept from about 7:30am until 3pm).

Anyway, so now I have an outline and a pretty detailed scene list to work from. I did have a little cleanup work to do today, like moving details I came up with later to their appropriate scenes earlier and expanding on a few scenes here and there, but now that that's mostly done, I think I'm good to go to finally start the actual writing.

But I think I'll start that tomorrow, since I've already written about 900 words today, plus this post.

I also might give it a few days to settle before I start working on it. I kind of feel like getting this particular goal done has sort of opened up some space for me to maybe work on some other projects I've been putting off (ABP, X:WS, others), but we'll see.

For now, I'm just going to relax for a bit and enjoy this feeling of accomplishment. :)

Struggling With Lights

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Written by Kodi Wolf at 2:36 PM

June started off awesome. I wrote over 11,000 words in the first 8 days. Then I kind of crashed and burned the rest of the month.

My total word count for June was 17,405, which averages out to 580 words per day. My lowest words per day was 94 and my highest was 4,268.

So I think I figured out what happened.

For one thing, I'm dealing with more medical stuff, which is always stressful and seems to be a little moreso since I really haven't had a break since the beginning of the year.

I've also realized I've gotten out of the habit of writing for characters that have a main plot besides the relationship.

I've been writing scenes for A Bondage Primer for the past couple years and I've gotten used to writing for two characters who genuinely love each other and want to be together. There's very little background drama. It's all about them working out their relationship. It's mostly dialogue and sex scenes or cuddling scenes.

Then I started trying to write Lights of Life and kept struggling with each and every sentence. I had to show Jess and Kaylee doing things that are relevant to the plot rather than each other. I'm also dealing with two people who haven't come right out and said they're attracted to each other, and one of them is actively fighting that attraction.

So basically, writing their scenes was stressing me out. :)

It was also making me think the story was broken because if I'm not having a good time writing, the reader probably isn't going to have a good time reading. That idea was really undermining my confidence, which was making writing almost impossible because my inner critical editor wouldn't shut up long enough for me to be creative.

Of course, I only realized all this a few days ago, so I haven't really worked on any fixes, but I think I should be able to get back to it soon.

After looking at it more objectively, I've realized I only have a few more setup scenes to get through before I'll be able to start introducing more sexual tension into the scenes, which makes writing them a lot more fun. I also realized that while I might be taking forever to write the text, it really is only a few paragraphs here and there. And I can always come back to it later and edit where necessary. There just has to be something there for me to edit in the first place.

Which means I have to write it, even if it isn't great.

At Least I Hit My Word Count

Thursday, August 2, 2018

Written by Kodi Wolf at 12:15 PM

July was the opposite of June. I started off barely getting any words written and then managed to hit my word count in the last few days of the month.

My total word count for July was 18,588, which averages out to 600 words per day. My lowest words per day was 51 and my highest was 2,634.

Part of what slowed me down at the beginning of the month was that Corene and I spent the first week cleaning up and organizing the house. With all the medical stuff that's been going on, it was getting pretty bad, but we buckled down and got most of the house picked up. It feels a lot less stressful now, which has been great.

We even repurposed the office to make space for an exercise area, since I've relocated to the recliner couch due to back and neck issues. I now have a space to do some minimal exercising and Corene's inversion table is more accessible without being in the way of everything else. I really like being able to just walk in there and do some quick exercises.

Of course, the medical stuff hasn't stopped. After treating what my doctor thought was ringworm for two months and not getting anywhere, and then having a random breakout of hives all over my legs and arms, I ended up at the dermatologist and had a biopsy taken on my thigh.

Thankfully, it just turned out to be pigmented purpuric dermatoses (yay, a new diagnosis, just what I wanted... not). It's sort of like my body just decides to randomly form bruises in large patches all over my legs and arms. There's nothing they can really do about it, but it doesn't hurt, it's not contagious, and it isn't linked to anything more dire, so at least there's that. :)

Oh, and I don't think I mentioned it before because I was getting tired of writing about even more medical crap, but I've been dealing with wrist issues for several months now. The doctors wanted to do an MRI with contrast, but that seemed really invasive to me, so I just stuck with doing some exercises and happened on one that seems to have been really effective: traction.

All I've been doing is grabbing on to the refrigerator door handle and pulling from the side so it doesn't open for a couple sets of 10 seconds each and that seems to have made a huge improvement on my pain and mobility. Way better than the exercises I was given, which were actually increasing my pain.

Well, I'm working on a site update, so let me get back to that and see if I can get that up in the next couple hours.

New ABP Chapters Posted

Saturday, August 4, 2018

Written by Kodi Wolf at 8:46 AM

I know I said I would get these up on Thursday, but it ended up being a little more involved than I thought it would be.

Anyway, I've finally posted Days 18-20 of A Bondage Primer.

Those three chapters are over 50,000 words, which is one of the reasons it's taken me so long to update again (not to mention all the medical crap that's been happening this year). I have more chapters in the process of being finalized, which at this point, I'm just hoping to get posted by the end of the year.

And just a quick little reminder in case you missed my last update on this story back in December...

The warnings were updated at that time to include a lot of stuff I know will be coming up in the story at some point based on my outline, so you might want to check those out if you haven't already. These chapters in particular include more details about Ryan's abusive childhood, but I'm hoping that's offset by the short duration of those scenes compared to the copious amounts of sex. :)

You can read the new chapters here on the site:

A Bondage Primer

Or download the Kindle MOBI, EPUB, or PDF ebook versions:

A Bondage Primer ebooks

Make sure you're logged in or you won't be able to access anything.

Anyway, I hope you like the new chapters. Let me know what you think (good or bad).

If you need help transferring the ebook to your device, try this tutorial on Book Launch: How to Transfer Your Ebook to Your Favorite Reading Device

If you're still having problems after that, let me know and I'll try to help. This is my first time offering the MOBI and EPUB versions, so I'm a little nervous about it. I hope I got it right.

Happy reading. :)

Major Life Stuff Happening

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Written by Kodi Wolf at 5:31 PM

August was a good month of writing. I even posted new chapters, which was awesome.

My total word count for August was 21,603, which averages out to 697 words per day. My lowest words per day was 70 and my highest was 2,443.

So, I realize this monthly update is a little late... okay, a lot. But some major life stuff has been happening and I've prioritized writing my stories over posting to this blog, so I'm okay with that.

And I know I haven't updated my progress reports either, but I have actually managed to write every day, despite the life stuff, so I consider that another win.

Anyway, the life stuff is nothing bad. In fact, it's really good.

Corene and I are buying a house. :)

Well, she's buying it. I'm just her personal banker that made sure we could afford it.

We're about halfway through the process and everything has gone pretty smoothly so far.

Here's hoping that will continue. :)

We Have A House

Thursday, October 25, 2018

Written by Kodi Wolf at 4:52 PM

I don't know how, but September turned out to be my best month of writing so far this year. I don't know if it was just me channeling my anxiety into my writing or the fact that I was trying to be extra vigilant about getting my writing done despite the stress of buying a house, but whatever it was, I'm really proud of myself for not letting all the chaos get in the way of my writing.

My total word count for September was 40,161, which averages out to 1,339 words per day. My lowest words per day was 160 and my highest was 7,270.

Well, like the title says, we finally have a house. We closed on Tuesday and everything went great.

Now I'm gearing up to paint and trying to decide who's going to install the new flooring we need to put in upstairs before we move in.

Of course, I woke up with a migraine yesterday, so I just ended up taking drugs and going back to sleep. Since my body is clearly telling me I need to take a break, I'm probably going to wait until the weekend to get to work, so Corene can help me get started properly.

We're both very excited to move in to the new place, but we know it's going to be another couple months with the minor reno we have planned. Still, we can't wait. :)

If I remember to take pictures, I might post some before and after shots.

Working On The House

Sunday, November 4, 2018

Written by Kodi Wolf at 6:15 AM

After having an awesome month of writing in September, despite the stress of buying a house, I think October is where it all caught up with me. I managed to keep up with my writing every day, but it was a struggle to get the words on the page and I barely hit my monthly goal.

My total word count for October was 16,709, which averages out to 539 words per day. My lowest words per day was 125 and my highest was 4,171.

That high of over 4,000 words was actually done on October 31 in a last ditch marathon session to hit my basic goal of 15,500 words for the month (that's 500 words per day). I surpassed it by 1,000 words, but I really hated leaving it to the last minute.

I'm going to try to do better this month, but I know it's going to be difficult because I have a lot of work to do on the house. It's not anything major. Just patching holes, painting, and getting flooring installed upstairs and in the back bedroom, but it is going to take a significant amount of energy, which tends to drain my creativity.

My plan is to get my writing done first thing before I go over to the house to work, and when that fails, I'm hoping I'll be able to get some writing done while I'm taking breaks from the reno.

I really want to be moved in before Christmas. I think it's doable, but a lot depends on how well my body holds up and how long it takes to get the flooring installed.

Here's hoping I can pull it off. :)

Still Working On The House

Monday, December 31, 2018

Written by Kodi Wolf at 7:25 PM

This post was supposed to be about November, but since it's so late and I've actually done my writing for today, I'm going to go ahead and include December as well. I'll post my year-end summary later.

My total word count for November was 16,611, which averages out to 554 words per day. My lowest words per day was 87 and my highest was 2,379.

My total word count for December was 25,714, which averages out to 829 words per day. My lowest words per day was 77 and my highest was 3,785.

I'm exhausted from working on the house, so I'm going to keep this short.

I'm still working on the house. I'm still writing every day. I'm really tired, but the house is coming along.

I'll write more next year.

Happy New Year. :)