At almost three full months into Follow the Arrows‘s writing journey, the book should be almost halfway done, right?

Bless your heart if you think it is, because life has been h-e-c-t-i-c lately, and I’ve had to put writing on the back burner to stay sane. Yeah, you read that right.

So, just how stagnant has writing progress been? Let’s see…

If You Missed Past Updates, You Can Recap Here:

September 2024: August’s Momentum Didn’t Carry Over into September

When I last updated y’all on August 26th, Follow the Arrows was sitting at 6,725 words for the month. I managed to squeeze in one more writing session in August bringing my WIP’s total word count to 7,234 words, not quite meeting that 7.5k word count goal I was hoping for. Still, it wasn’t bad for the first month!

In September, I wrote five times, with sessions scattered throughout the month. The handful of writing sessions resulted in an additional 2,478 words for the manuscript, bringing Follow the Arrows‘s total, and current word count, to 9,712 words.

October 2024: Taking A Break from Writing for Several Reasons

A few weeks ago, I announced that I was postponing The Dream‘s release date to December 2nd to give me more time to work on it. Turns out, in my effort to go back through The Crush and The Fall and make sure those are as error-free as possible before releasing The Dream, I needed even more time than I first thought. Still, even with using my typical writing time to either work on tasks to prepare for The Dream‘s release or, you know, just breathe because even that’s been a luxury lately, October’s schedule hasn’t been forgiving. My husband and I have been to two weddings this month, went on a 5-day vacation to Pennsylvania for our wedding anniversary, and spent from 10:00 a.m. to 5 p.m. this past Saturday serving at our church and going to a family reunion immediately after. We’ve also been to three funerals this month alone.

I’ll admit, ever since I’ve decided to dedicate more time to prepare for The Dream‘s release, it seems like if I somehow have spare time to do a task, that time eventually gets taken up by some other event/duty we can’t get out of. I have not had so many people constantly needing my attention in my life, and y’all, I feel like I’m drowning. My husband and I have been in a never-ending state of go-go-go! over the past several months and I’m over it. As a result, I’m cramming in whatever tasks I can to prepare for the book’s release in those pockets of free time, and I’m constantly feeling guilty over the state of my house because it’s sure not cleaning itself. I’m beyond overwhelmed by all of our responsibilities… and we don’t even have children yet! I don’t know how my fellow Indie authors who have full-time jobs and kids do it all. Y’all are certifiable rockstars. I’m barely getting by right now and that’s with sacrificing writing and marketing efforts just to prioritize the release.

Long story short: I’ve decided to take a break from writing Follow the Arrows until after The Dream‘s release. Fingers crossed, November and December won’t be as busy as the past few months have been and the book’s release will go off without a hitch. Please, Lord, let that be so.

Please Pray for Me, Arrowheads.

I feel like I’ve been asking for prayer a lot this year, but both my husband and I need it and we can never receive enough prayer. Without going into specifics, he’s been going through some health stuff for the past six months that affects him daily, and watching him deal with it without being able to do anything about it, on top of everything else we’ve got going on, has been extremely tough. These past several months have been brutal on my mental and spiritual well-being. Please pray for his health issue to go into remission and for our faith to endure these trials.

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

-Allyson 😀