Briefs
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I’m nearing the end of Arachnomancer 3 and am faced with a choice. As a writer, we often focus on word count. It’s the single easiest method to measure productivity.
But here lies the problem. . . .
Somedays can’t be writing days. Somedays, writing new words might take you and the story further from your goal. Yet, I’m participating in a challenge to write 2,024 new words every day this year.
This works out to be about 738k words or about seven 400-page books. In 2023, I wrote somewhere around 500k words (quick aside: I want to build an app to track my word productivity and thoughts, energy level, mood, etc.).
The goal is to write consumable words. Simply writing “junk” words I don’t intend to publish is cheating.
Maybe there is no choice. At this point, I need to read the book from the start, which will kill my word count. But doing so will help me write a satisfying ending.
Writing challenges are good for motivation but can lead to being inflexible. And maybe there is no such thing as “junk” words. Every word you write is exercise for your creative muscle. Taking a week to read/edit leads to creative atrophy.
Hah. Alright. That’s my decision. I just needed to write my thoughts out. Time to get back to it. :)
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It’s nearly time! Dungeon Runner 1 comes out tomorrow. Then it’s November and December for books 2 and 3. :)
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I haven’t been updating the Briefs for a bit now. I’m actually planning on redesigning my website and repurposing Briefs for humorous flash fiction.
But until that happens, I thought you might be interested to know that I’ve updated the Dungeon Runner books on the site. You can see their new covers, subtitles, and blurbs.
Over 1,500 pages. Oi.
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The first Arachnomancer audiobook—Wrong Divinity—is out now, available in all stores! If you have been waiting for this, now’s the time to grab your copy.
The second book will be released on September 26th. And Sarah’s standalone novel—Bookworm to Badass—will be coming out on August 22nd.
If you pick any of these books up, I hope you enjoy them! Thank you for your support. And thank you to Dreamscape Lore for producing them. :)
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I’m at the cusp of finishing Dungeon Runner, and maybe that’s the problem. I’ve never finished a series before. I’m so excited to be done, but I’m also a little sad to be writing the last words.
I love these characters, and I want to have more fun with them as they go on new adventures.
But the end of one thing is often—definitely in my case—the beginning of another. I just need to finish. Why is that so hard? Haha.
Dungeon Runner 3 is 151k words and needs about 10k more. It has four epilogues… I like epilogues! The books will be coming out in the last three months of the year. :)
Onward to finishing things!
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Added 20,000 words to Dungeon Runner 3 this week. I was hoping that 25,000 words would be enough, but it just needs a bit more time. There are about ten more chapters to go, haha.
In other news, it looks like I have three audiobooks coming out next month. Crazy!
Alright, back to work. ;)
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Another week and a new writing record. Woot!
Added 26k words to Dungeon Runner 3, bringing it up to 115k. Back when these were novella episodes, 26k would be an entire book. It’s interesting to look at where this series has come from and see where it’s at now. :)
Based on this speed and loosely where I think the book will end, I could finish it next week. After that, I might drop in some new PoV chapters in the first book to round things out a bit better.
All and all, it was a great week. Onward to the next!
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Despite failing to hit my word-count goal most days of this week, I still ended with 23,293 words, which is the most I’ve written in a week since I started tracking.
I think.
What day is today?
Where am I?
So, life feels like a blur, but it’s a good blur. Lots of fun things happen in the blur. For one, I bought a piano I don’t know how to use. That’s normally fine, but it’s the third one. I think I have a problem.
I vow not to buy any more pianos.
Someone hold me to that.
Let’s see. Dungeon Runner is just shy of 90k words. I believe it’ll be 120k words once it’s done. I’d prefer 100k, but there’s just no way to get everything to fit into 10k at this point. In fact, 120k might not be enough. I shall make an offering to the muse god and ask for mercy.
Have a fantastic weekend. :)
/Blurs away/
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I helped a friend move yesterday and was asked, “How did you learn to write?” And my answer was, “I ran a writing community for six years. After that, I studied every book I could buy—over 200—on craft for half a decade, writing as often as I could. I’m constantly learning.”
I kind of felt like the question was . . . not stupid but a question that had an obvious answer. How do you get good at anything? You study a lot and practice a lot.
Then I got home and watched this guy on YouTube play Ghibli music on the piano. I’ve been wanting to compose my own music for decades, which starts with the piano. I thought, “How did he learn to play?”
This made me realize that we all find what others do well, kind of magical. But the answer is the same for pretty much everything. If you want to do something, study everything you can and practice lots.
This week, my practicing—as every step you take toward your goals is also a learning opportunity—resulted in 15,193 new words on Dungeon Runner 3. It’s officially 50% done, which is unfortunate.
I’m not making enough progress toward my goals. As such, I did the totally Dustin thing to do; I came up with a new schedule! I’m on Plan 23, which increases my 50-minute writing sessions to eight from seven.
We’ll see how this goes for the next week or two and adjust if needed. The day, if you asked me, needs a few more hours in it.
With that, I bid thee farewell. Have a wonderful week!
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First off, happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there. :)
They call me Daddy of Books. Yes, I have troublesome kids that never do what they are told. They take me for wild adventures and try to make me laugh. It’s so cringe. But I do this out of love, so it is what it is. . . .
Alright, on to this week’s update. I added 18,148 words to Dungeon Runner 3, which brings it to just over 50k words. This mostly concludes the first two Parts of five.
Parts 2 and 4 are interludes, which are about 10k words each. I have to say, I love my interludes. The stories just write themselves and end up being my favorite in these books. But this is unique to Dungeon Runner and its odd structure. I’m probably not going to write interludes in my next series.
Besides that, I got my new computers: a Mac Studio M2 Ultra and a 15" MacBook Air M2. I’m still organizing my office while busily doing a billion other things. At some point, expect a lengthy article about my whole setup. :)
I hope you have a wonderful new week. Do something amazing and have fun!