If you’ve been following Authoring Arrowheads over the past few months, you may remember that in March 2022, I picked back up writing a WIP I originally started in 2014, called On the Flip Side.

In April, I posted my first writing update for On the Flip Side, which you can read here, if you’d like. While I met my intended word count goal of 10,000 words in March, April proved to be my first difficult writing month on this WIP, where I only wrote around 1,000 words in total for the month.

So far, On the Flip Side has been an unpredictable journey. May, June, and July proved to be no different. Let’s recap.

May 2022

From March to May, I was dealing with some intense stress and overall negativity in my life (which, Thank God, is starting to diminish), and my writing suffered for it. In May, I wrote a total of five days throughout the month. My intentions started off well, with my first writing day being May 3rd. I ended up writing for four consecutive days in a row, and then, for a reason that is lost on me at the time of writing this post, didn’t pick back up again until May 20th, and gave up for the month after that. Those five days produced a total of 1,981 words, so it surpassed April’s total word count, but definitely did not get me to my intended end goal of (for the manuscript) 20,000 words.

June 2022

By the middle of June, I had only written four days out of the month, but at least this time, I had a viable excuse.

This month started out rough, with me coming down with a stomach virus on Memorial Day, one that kept me out of work for the first week of June. Y’all… it was bad. To spare you the details, let’s just say I didn’t feel like doing anything, including something as easy as reading, from the time I woke up Monday morning until Thursday night. On Friday, I got a little bit of my groove back and was able to work on some of my other author projects, but I wasn’t quite ready to get back to writing yet.

With my late start for June, my writing continued on June 8th, and by June 16th, I had wrote 1,415 words toward my overall goal of reaching a total of 20,000 words for the manuscript by the end of the month. I found that I was struggling to figure out one of my main characters, and, if you prefer to write character-driven stories like I do, you’ll know this was a problematic situation. I kept trying to tell myself to write what I can now and that I can go back and fill in the gaps later, but I also had to do that with a new character in my next release (The Fall), and WOO, I didn’t like doing that one bit, y’all. It can get messy and confusing if you’re not careful. With the problem surrounding a main character this time–the main character that carries the bulk of the issues throughout the story, despite the story being told from a dual POV–it was making me nervous.

I’ve been brainstorming through ways I could add to her character development, and I’ve got a piece of an idea, but I just don’t know if it’s strong enough yet. Either way, it deterred me from writing for a few more days. However, when I picked back up on June 23rd, something finally clicked. By the grace of God, I managed to write 1,501 words that day–my highest daily word count for this manuscript at the time–and it felt good. I had been struggling with that chapter’s opening scene, but God got me through it and I was able to write the bulk of the scene after that. June 24th was a great writing day as well, coming in at precisely 1,200 words, giving me an overall word count of 18,193.

The last week of June proved to be absolutely epic, as from June 27th through June 30th, I wrote a sum of 4,321 words! Since decent writing days had been few and far between prior to June 23rd, this week made me immensely happy and became genuinely excited to write On the Flip Side, where I had been previously struggling to feel motivated.

Overall, in June 2022, I wrote a total of 8,778 words, which made a total of 22,514 words for the manuscript.

July 2022

I’ll admit, I got a late start for writing in July too, taking the first few days of the month easy to celebrate Independence Day. The first day I wrote this month was July 7th, which produced the insane amount of, precisely, 45 words. *BOO* But, the reason why is that I realized I needed to go back and alter my outline some because I didn’t have a clear view of what to write from that point on. So, that day I tweaked the outline, resolving to cut out the flashbacks that begin each chapter from that point on, and was able to pick back up writing on the 8th.

For most of July, I’ve written around 400 words a day, which is normal for me if I’m able to get in one good half-hour session. July 14th has been my high-count for the month so far, coming in at 1,307 words.

At this point in the novel, I’ve just broken into the second act and am navigating through the difficult decisions Kennedy and Katie are making. Again, I had to fix my outline and readjust, and have had a few days where I’m still not sure if this is the correct direction to go in. Nevertheless, I keep telling myself that this is the first draft and there’s no way it will be perfect, which has helped get the words out. Please pray for me as I continue writing the “Fun and Games” portion of the book… it’s always my weak spot!

Talk to Me, Arrowheads!

If you’re a fellow writer, how is your current WIP going? What do you tell yourself on rough writing days? I can’t wait to hear from you!

Aim high, stay strong, and always hit your mark.

-Allyson 😀