Ten months in, writing Follow the Arrows has proved to be quite the adventure. Either I go a month without writing (or months, plural), or I crank out thousands of words like it’s nobody’s business. Update #5 features a mixture of both. Keep reading to find out why this WIP’s momentum keeps switching from traffic jam status to full throttle mode.

If You Missed Past Updates, You Can Recap Here:

• My New WIP: Follow the Arrows
• Follow the Arrows (Update #1)
• Follow the Arrows (Update #2)
• Follow the Arrows (Update #3)
• Follow the Arrows (Update #4)

May 2025: Back to a Standstill

When I last updated you on Follow the Arrows‘ progress in April, I mentioned I had reached the 25,000 word mark on the book and that I managed to meet my 10,000 word goal for the month. Great? Great.

Well then here came May.

How much did I write? 343 words. How many days did I spend writing? One. One single day. May 1st, to be exact.

Why? Because right after that, I got summoned to be on call to fulfill my duty as an American citizen for three weeks, an hour away from home, and figured, with the way this horrendous year has gone for me already, that I would have to fulfill this duty for the entire period. So, I banked on not having time to write. This is also why I did not post here on Authoring Arrowheads for three weeks because, again, I figured I wouldn’t have time to dedicate to those posts. Then, plot twist… by the grace of God, I never had to show up, so May ended up being yet another break from writing.

Instead, during the time I normally dedicate to writing (I mean, when I’m not in the middle of another month/multi-month break, let’s be real at this point), I beta read a manuscript for one of my author friends, which I wholeheartedly enjoyed. So no, May was not a waste. The break also invigorated me to get back to writing in June.

June 2025: Kicking Follow the Arrows into High Gear

I was nervous about picking up where I left off on Follow the Arrows because I was puzzling out whether Owen’s goal for the book was strong enough to warrant his behavior, or if he was going to come off as dramatic to readers. In the book, he’s determined for his team to win the bowling league so he will win enough money to fully fund his first year of community college. Owen is raised by an overworked, single mom who doesn’t make much money and he’s too stubborn to apply for financial aid. After running my thoughts by my husband and asking him how I could better set up the bowling league in the book to make the stakes higher for Owen, he helped me realize that all I needed to do was add more teams to the league than I had originally planned, so the league’s prize fund would have a larger payout. One quick day of brainstorming out more teams and my husband sending me a copy of actual bowling league rules to reference got me out of my funk and helped me get excited about writing again.

And y’all, this month, I’ve actually managed to get words on pages. More than I thought possible, in fact!

By the end of the first week of June, when I had two days of writing 1,000+ words and had added 3,943 words to the manuscript, I knew this was going to be a great month to play catch-up. Since I only wrote 343 words in May, Follow the Arrows started off at 25,442 words in June. Call me picky, but I hate starting off months when my manuscript’s word counts aren’t already at even intervals of 10,000 (I hope that’s the correct terminology/way to explain it. Please forgive me if it’s not!), so I made up my mind that if I met my 10,000 word goal for the month early that I’d strive to write a total of 15,000 words for June so I could reach the 40,000 word mark on the manuscript.

God allowed me to meet my monthly goal of 10,000 words on June 20th, so ever since then, I’ve been chasing those extra five thousand words to achieve that second goal.

Yesterday, June 24th, God allowed me to reach the 12.5k words milestone and I ended today’s writing session with only 1,429 words left to reach the 15k word goal.

Stay tuned for the next WIP Update to see if I make it there!

Talk to Me, Arrowheads!

If you’re a writer, what’s your biggest obstacle when it comes to writing? Let me know in the comments!

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

-Allyson 😀