Welcome back to another update on my current work in progress, Tales of an Awkward Turtle!

For past WIPs, I feel like I had a million updates for each. For Tales, though, this may be the last one before The End!

If You Missed Past Updates, You Can Recap Here:

• Tales of an Awkward Turtle (Update #1)
• Tales of an Awkward Turtle (Update #2)

Now, let me fill you in on all that’s happened since the last update…

April 2024: The Month I Realized This Book Would Be Shorter Than I Originally Thought!

If you caught the most recent update back in March, you may remember that in February, I reached what I originally thought was the midpoint.

Turns out, I did reach the midpoint that month, but just a little sooner than the 28th.

On April 9th, after considering my outline, the scenes I had left to write, and the word count marks where the story beats already written fell at the time, I realized Tales of an Awkward Turtle wasn’t shaping up to be an 80,000 word novel. Instead, by my guess, it would end up being between 70,000 to 75,000 words. So, from then on, my new ultimate goal for the WIP has been to be around 72,500 words, depending on how the final few chapters go.

During April, I struggled initially. I wrote the All if Lost beat (75% mark), and had a hard time writing out an argument scene. However, this is something I’ve struggled with in the past and can always fix during edits, so I powered through and kept going. After that was written, I had a grand ole time resuming to Brandon and the other characters’ hilarious antics.

For the word count goals, God allowed me to reach 55k words on April 16th.

On April 22nd, He allowed me to reach my second goal of 57.5k words.

And, on the last day of the month, the Lord allowed me to reach my ultimate goal for April of 60,000 words, bringing the manuscript’s final word count for the month to 60,091 words!

Number of April Writing Sessions: 17

May 2024: IS THIS THE END?!

For me, the entire month of May has been an epic battle between “I’m gonna write like crazy and finish Tales this month” and “I may just wait ’til June to not stress myself out”.

I’m writing this post on the day it goes live (May 29th) and do you think I’ve made a decision on if I’m going to try to finish the book this month? HA!

What I really wanted to do was write over Memorial Day weekend, since I took an extra day off to make it a four-day weekend, but do y’all think I did that? Double HA.

*Sighs* So, now my options are:

1. Scrambling to write four more chapters in two days and a handful of hours (I’ll need some ice cream, but it’s doable).
2. Scrambling to finish writing the book on the morning of June 1st (because I started writing Tales on November 1st, and it’s symmetrical), when I have two social obligations that day.
3. Waiting until later in June to finish the book, potentially sacrificing the goal of making Tales my fastest written WIP yet.

That last one’s kinda petty, and I’m not normally one to rush my writing, but The Fall was written in 7 months, two weeks, and two days, and if I can stick with this, Tales will be completed in under 7 months. I’m hardcore stubborn, so I feel like Option 1 is what I’ll strive for. XD

Ahem. So after that unhinged explanation, let’s go over what has been written in May.

At the beginning of the month, I wrote a scene starring Victoria from Speak Your Mind that made me cackle, so that was fun!

Around the middle of the month, I wrote the scene where the name of the book makes sense. 😀

And ever since, I’ve been trying to wrap this story up in a neat little bow and declare it finished!

For word count goals, God allowed me to reach 65k words on May 15th.

On May 21st, He allowed me to reach my second goal of 67.5k words.

As of today’s writing session (May 29th) Tales is less than 200 words away from 70,000 words, with four chapters to go. Keep in mind, some of these chapters are shorter, so I’m not expecting a ton more words to be written. Honestly, though, it may be more than 72,500 by the time this thing is over!

Please pray for me to be able to finish writing this book before May turns into June!

Talk to Me, Arrowheads!

Whew, that was a lot! If you’re a writer, how is your current WIP going?

If you’re a reader, good news! Even though I didn’t write over Memorial Day weekend, I did finish the latest round of edits for The Dream and finally sent it to my alpha reader. It’s getting closer!

P.S.: There’s a surprise coming next week, Lord willing. Stay tuned!

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

-Allyson 😀