The KU Book That Consumed Me

“This book consumes me.” These are the words I wrote in my journal one night, when I spent most of my day writing in the March KU book. (Note: KU means Kindle Unlimited. I started out writing this book strictly with the intention of it being an ebook available as a free download on Kindle Unlimited, but now I am thinking of making it a print as well, because two people I know who want to read it prefer print books.)

 

I had hoped to get this book written in one week, but at 30 chapters and nearly 150 pages, it took me two. It didn’t help that, during the first week, I was also working on a writing assignment. For that week, I spent half my day working on my assignment, and the other half working on my book. Trying to stay focused on two different writing projects got to be pretty challenging. I was able to turn in my assignment on time, but that experience was exhausting.

 

Which is why I prefer to focus only on the book when I am writing it. For the second week, that’s what I did – perhaps a little too much. There were times I was absentminded about other things (I left my keys in the lock on the front door!), I was late to pick my kids up from either school or work, and I often lost track of the time at night while I was busy writing or doing research, which meant late dinners.

 

I’d get up in the morning and start writing it.

 

I’d stay up late at night writing it.

 

I’d battle headaches and sleepiness while I was working on it and getting those chapters written.

 

I actually ended up moving a chapter to another location, as well as changing titles of chapters I had originally put into my outline when I was preparing to work on this book last month. I also got an idea for another chapter that I hadn’t even thought about before!

 

And, unfortunately, I neglected certain duties – housework, walking the dog and my usual reading routine – while I was writing this book.

 

I kept tabs on how many words I wrote each day. At one point, I started keeping tabs on how many chapters I wrote each day. My followers on Twitter and my Facebook pages were often apprised of my progress. But after a while, I stopped sharing word counts, because it felt like bragging. But when a fellow writer told me that all of this writing-related stuff I was sharing inspired her to get writing again, I realized that perhaps sharing this stuff is not so terrible after all. I was excited that my efforts to write this book was inspiring another writer to get writing again! Yay!

 

That is one of the reasons why I share my efforts with writing: I do want to inspire others to write, too. Or, get back to writing. I want to be an example to others. I want to inspire others. It doesn’t bother me at all when people copy things I do; if their copying is something that is GOOD for them and something that can bring joy, accomplishments and inspiration into their lives, then copy away! I told the universe one day “Use me” because I want to inspire others, motivate others and bring positive changes into the lives of other people.

 

That motivating factor recently played a role for me – when I was actually writing this book.

 

I am subscribed to a monthly newsletter sent out by a fellow writer. In one issue of the newsletter, she talked about writers who were able to write 10,000 words in one day. I was stunned. How was that possible?? The most I’d written was a little over 2,000 words. (That’s not counting the words of the 7 chapters I wrote in 1 day on Christmas Eve! All that writing was done in a notebook and I didn’t count the words.) Even so, I wanted to see if I, too, could manage to write 10,000 words in one day.

 

Well, I sure got close!

 

It was on Day 13 that I wrote over 5,000 words. Oh, boy! What a day that was! I woke up ready and eager to write in the book, so that’s what I did. I sat down at the computer, opened the file, and started typing. After I wrote three chapters, though, I crashed. Not from headaches, this time, but from another deterrent I have been dealing with lately: Sleepiness. I’d get VERY sleepy sometimes and conk out for 2 or 3 hours. (My doctor is currently running tests to find out why this is happening.) So, after I woke up, ate something, and was feeling strong enough to write again, I got back to work.

 

Then the power went out! ARGH!!

 

Thankfully, my youngest got the power back on and, thankfully again, I remembered what I had written that was not saved before we lost power. I am grateful the power stayed on during that time I spent writing!

 

On that day, I wrote 4 chapters, the afterword, and the Introduction for the book. It was all totaled to over 5,000 words. I got halfway to my goal of 10K! Yay!

 

Here is the total word counts for when I was writing this book:

 

Introduction: 530 words

Day 1: 3876 words

Day 2: 2124 words

Day 3: 2601 words (2 chapters)

Day 4: 1186 for 1 chapter (had bad headaches today and couldn't write the second chapter that I wanted to write today)

Day 5: 4910 words for 3 chapters

Day 6: 3240 words for 3 chapters

Day 7: 3217 words for 2 chapters

Day 8: 1342 words JUST ONE CHAPTER TODAY BECAUSE OF HEADACHES!

Day 9: 2791 words for two chapters

Day 10: 2205 (two chapters)

Day 11: 3675 (two chapters)

Day 12: 4,635 (4 chapters)

Day 13: 5,732 words for 4 chapters, afterword and introduction

Afterword: 380 words

 

TOTAL: 41,647 words in the first draft

Second draft (after some edits and revisions): 42,023 words

 

That is not so bad. I noticed I am a little short of 50K words here, which is what I aim for since I want to write a NaNoWriMo novel in November. This is why I am keeping track of word counts. I want to be able to write that novel with 50K words!

 

Hopefully, I will be able to find a routine to make that work. When I am working on the books, I don’t keep track of how many words I write. I keep track of what I get DONE for the day. I go into the day with a goal to get certain things done for each book: A chapter written, a section of the book edited, a part of the book revised or a poem written for a new collection. These are what I aim for, not the number of words written. But because I want to do NaNoWriMo this year and write 50K words, I need to pay attention to my daily word counts. (I DID write a novel for NaNoWriMo one year, but it came in under 40K words. Drat!)

 

I will keep trying to get to my 10K words in a day goal.

 

Right now, however, I am going back to work on the group of books I have been working on before I started working on this book: The next GHOST Group book, edits on the haunted houses book, writing End Game and also writing my next poetry book. I am also working on my next writing assignment, which is due at the end of the month.

 

For now, that’s a wrap. I’m done. The March KU book is out for edits and I have completed putting everything else together for it (both front matter and back matter). I am DONE doing research on this book; now to do research on the next book!

 

And, thankfully, the next book will be an easy one for me. It’s just a book of quotes on a theme. It won’t need too much work on my part, and zero work from the editor. I think we both could use the break!