I set a number of goals for myself back in January. I put thought into them. I tried to make them uncomfortable but within my grasp if I worked hard enough.

One of these goals was to write 30,000 words* a month. My breakdown so far:

January: 36,753

February: 33,150

March: 32,319

April: 35,126

And then I got to May. My count so far this month? 4702 (not counting today). This is less than my highest single-day count this year (4818).

Needless to say, I'm a little disappointed. But I know why it's so low.

I've restarted my agent search, so some days I've been re-researching all the agents I looked at before, and a few new ones-- this mostly involves printing pages/highlighting them. Some days are spent exclusively combing through my manuscript looking for typos (low word count, very time consuming). And some days are spent working on my query blurb/synopsis (also low word count).

What I'm doing right now is important. And I know that. But when I look at my spreadsheet, I feel like I've been doing nothing.

So I think this particular goal might need a little editing. 30,000 words/month is a goal I want to achieve, no doubt about it. But I need to allow myself to let go of the word count when I'm editing and querying. And who knows, I might still bump up the words and hit my goal this month (especially if I nail this synopsis sooner rather than later). Stranger things have happened. But for now I have to be okay with where I am.

So, new goals:

30,000 words/month when actively writing/plotting/revising

20,000 words/month when mostly editing and querying

20,000 means I still need to pump up my daily counts by a few hundred words. It means I have to push myself a little harder than I have been the last week or so. But it's also going to keep me from going crazy with writer-guilt or writing gibberish just to hit my count.

*I count all writing-related words, except blogging and word-count record-keeping.