All right, here’s a moment.

Total stories started: 28. Quality varies, but I’m reasonably sure that about 20 are worth exploring and perhaps 10-15 of them will eventually be finished. (At that point, I’ll decide based on the finished story whether it’s worth circulating.)

Total stories completed: 2. I didn’t think I’d be able to do it, but I worked my tail off and finally got them done. I chose the peacock story–partly because I had the most words on it, and partly because some of you said you wanted to read it. I also did the fireworks story because I knew it would be short.

Total words written: 22,850. And some of them are in BLOOD.

Funds raised for Clarion West: I haven’t gotten a final count yet, but I think it’s somewhere around $300. If anyone still needs to pay their pledge, you can make a donation here. You can also donate even if you didn’t officially sponsor me. All donations support the Clarion West Writers Workshop.

What I learned: A bunch of things!
1. It’s true that writing encourages writing. The more consistently I did it, the easier it became.
2. My health, mental readiness, and mood do affect the quality of the work… but not nearly as much as I thought they did. Some of the best work happened when I had no idea, no plan, and didn’t really care. Some of the not-so-good work happened when I thought I had a great plan and was working really hard.
3. Often I don’t know what the story is about until I explore it on the page… and no amount of pre-planning or thinking will save me from the frustration of writing that first draft.
4. I can’t wait to explore over the next few months and see which of these beginnings become stories.
5. If I do something like this again, I’d schedule a week of “continuing” stories: 500 words on an already-established start, rather than a new one. It’d be nice to have some stories closer to done at this point.

Thank you, everyone, for your support and encouragement during the Write-a-Thon. It helped me a ton to know that my friends and family cared about what I was working on. You guys rock.

Launchpad comments coming when I have time…