I’m a slacker. I’ve been absolutely horrible at keeping the goals I’ve set for myself, both in writing and in other areas of my life. I’m working on changing, but it’s a tough fight against a lifetime being lazy.

I’m not about to give up. Sure, I might fail.

I may not hit the word count I want.

I may not keep the schedule I want.

I may not hit ANY of my goals.

But at least I’m in the arena.

The Super Secret Project

I’ve mentioned this project off and on almost since the beginning of this site. All I’ve mentioned so far is that it is going to be a serial horror-western. At least that was the plan.

I’ve decided to shelve it.

I’m not scrapping it, cancelling it, or whatever else authors tell themselves about new, uncompleted projects. I’m not scrapping it. I’m absolutely in love with what I know about the story so far. I’ve got beats written out for an entire first season that is planned to come in around 250,000 words.

I’m not giving up, I’m just delaying.

I haven’t been able to give the writing the attention it deserves. Overall it’s dragging down my other work and scattering my thoughts. It boils down to me trying to do too much, too fast.

So I’m laying off for a while, letting that story marinate in my desk drawer, and focusing on Regent of Aldun.

Regent of Aldun

Part of the reason I decided to shelve that project is because of the pathetic word count I’ve managed to squeeze out of Regent of Aldun. Since my last update I have managed to put my ass in the chair and write Regent of Aldun for a grand total of three hours and fifteen minutes. I’ve only added about 3300 words in almost two weeks. That’s completely unacceptable.

This is by far the story I’m most excited to tell and I’m only managing to write roughly an hour a week. If I’m lucky. If I’m not being a lazy ass.

See, I’ve come to realize laziness is an excuse. It’s one I’m not going to let hold me back anymore. I have the ability to change me, and I’m going to meld the new habits I’m working on into something that fits into who I am.

I expect truly epic word counts out of Regent of Aldun in the future.

I’m restating my deadline from a while back: I will be finished with the first draft by August 1.

The Blog

This is the second reason I decided to delay the other story. This article is the first work I’ve done on this blog in four days (my last post).

When I started this site I self-committed to a twice-weekly posting schedule. It’s not really a demanding schedule as far as blogs go. And it’s been an abject failure for me.

Sure, I put something up on time, most of the time. But it’s far from my best work. I can do better; you deserve better.

So I’m shelving that other project to devote at least a portion of the time I was spending on it to the blog.

In Summary

I mentioned last time that I was still working on ways to summarize the updates. I haven’t done that yet, either. So here’s the current update (actually, I’m not hating this format, so we’ll see…):

• Regent of Aldun: 26,500 words (+822 words)
• New Project: 7,500 words (on hold)
• BradPeirson.com: ~2,300 words
• Non-smoking: 41 days
• Cold showerd: 74 days

Overall, I’m not completely discouraged by the results. I opened this post with an excerpt from Teddy Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena for a reason. I admit that I’m not where I want to be with regard to my new life habits. I feel as if I’m failing, but I’m failing knowing that I’m still accomplishing more than I was before I tried.

Trying is the hard part. Everything after that is gravy.