Summer Writing Project(s)?

Tomorrow is already the start of June, which pretty much marks the start of summer. (I don’t want to hear about how summer doesn’t officially happen until June 21st. Here in Michigan, Memorial Day usually signals the beginning of summer.)

Similar to many people, I’m excited to take advantage of the warm weather and do summer-like stuff. Activities such as riding my bike or heading to my local metropark. And eating more ice cream than usual.

Unlike other people, though, I also use the summer months to work on a large writing project. I’ve only just started thinking about it, but there a few questions I have to answer before I embark on this year’s project:

1.) When should I begin?

Obviously, I’m not starting on June 1st, simply because I’m not ready. Two years ago, I began in the middle of June and wrote all the way until the beginning of August. Last year, I commenced on July 1st and only wrote for the month.

I guess it all depends on…

2.) What should I write?

If I plan on writing a story with a manuscript length, then I’m going to have to start early (aka: sometime in June). But if I’m just doing something similar like NaNoWriMo (where I just write a bunch of stories and see where they all go), then I could probably repeat what I did last year and begin on July 1st.

I haven’t written anything in almost two months, though, so my fingers are starting to itch on my keyboard. If I work on any stories in the next week or two, will that throw off my “groove” for whatever ends up being my summer writing project?

But if I wait until July, then I can spend some time brainstorming some ideas in June. Maybe pull out my handy dandy plot chart.


3.) Should I concentrate on having a word count? If so, what should it be?

Judging by how well my March and April writing projects went (yes, this is sarcasm), I think I need to impose some kind of total word count. If I don’t, I’m prone to skip days and not write, ultimately sweeping the whole idea away.

Really, it comes down to how ambitious I feel. If I want to have a more laidback approach, I try to write at least 1000 words a day. But if I’m really serious about working on a particularly long story, then I tend to kick it up to 1500 words/day. (Not like I’m doing anything exciting this summer, anyway.)



Yes, I really do think about all of this. As you can tell, I’m very much a Planner of Things. It’s a wonder that I actually do anything at all, haha.


P.S. And in case you were wondering, I did indeed finish reading AS I DARKEN by Kiersten White. I finally completed it last Thursday. Since I’ve mentioned it in my last three posts (yes, I am aware of it), you should know by now that I highly recommend the low-fantasy/alternative history novel.