On August 1st, I reached the 1 year mark into writing Follow the Arrows. Did I manage to meet my 15,000 word goal for June and did that trend continue over the past couple months, or did I fall off the writing wagon? Keep reading to find out.

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)
• Follow the Arrows (Update #5)

June 2025: Meeting the Monthly Goal & a Milestone

God did allow me to reach my goal of writing 15,000 additional words for Follow the Arrows in June, bringing the total word count for the novel to 40,837 words by the end of the month!

Since I outlined the project estimating that Follow the Arrows would be around 80,000 words, this also brought the book past its midpoint!

July 2025: Focusing on Editing On the Flip Side

When July rolled in, I was in the middle of reading my next intended release, On the Flip Side for editing again, so I took some time off of writing to finish that read-through.

During July, I wrote for a total of 10 sessions, resulting in 4,788 additional words. This brought Follow the Arrow‘s total word count to 45,625 by the end of the month.

August 2025: Enter the Secret Project… and the Realization that I’ve been Underwriting

As of today, August 27th, I’ve dedicated a total of seven writing sessions to Follow the Arrows this month, but I have a semi-decent reason why I haven’t written more than that.

Halfway through the month, I got an itch to start working on a Secret Project that I hope I’ll be able to release in early 2027 for my 10th publishing anniversary. Being that it’s requiring me to write an entire manuscript from start to finish, I finally realized, Hey, dingbat. You need to start working on it if you actually want to go through with it! So, I spent last week working on that project instead. More on that at a later date. 🙂

According to my original outline for Follow the Arrows, I’ve officially reached the All is Lost moment, aka the 75% mark of the book. If you’re doing the math based on the numbers I’ve provided, you’ll understand why this is not a good thing. XD

The midpoint of Follow the Arrows currently ends at 38,571 words. That’s cool and all, but if the novel requires double that amount to reach the end, and the All is Lost moment is supposed to come at the 75% mark, then the All is Lost moment is supposed to be between 57,800 to 60,000 words into the manuscript, definitely not at 40-something thousand words where it was fixing to go until I realized what had happened.

At some point in the last couple months, I’ve fallen into the habit of underwriting, and now, for my sanity’s sake, it’s my mission to go back and fix it before moving on. Yay me.

I’ve taken the time to go back and look at what I’ve written between the Midpoint and the chapter before the All is Lost moment to see where I can add scene breaks and additional scenes to beef up the Bad Guys Close In beat. To do this, I logged the word count for each of the chapters, chose to add extra scenes to the ones that were under 1,000 words, and wrote descriptions for what those scenes should include on the outline. I also went back to the beginning of the book and logged how many words are dedicated to Owen’s POV versus Hadley’s, since I’m writing a dual POV novel. I was shocked to find that, at the time I checked, Owen’s total word count was 24,627 and Hadley’s was 24,702, so they’re pretty much equal. Thank You, Jesus!

As far as writing the additional scenes, I went back to a previous chapter and started writing the first one yesterday and it went well. Hopefully I’ll be able to knock those out quickly and tackle the All if Lost moment soon!

During August, God has allowed me to write a total of 4,354 words so far, bringing the current total word count to 49,979.

What Will September Hold?

I’ve had a couple thoughts about writing Follow the Arrows over the last few weeks. The first is that now, at over a year into writing this book, I’ve finally realized I shouldn’t beat myself up over not writing Follow the Arrows as fast as I can. It’s not my next intended release, nor is it even the second or third next intended release, so I don’t know why I’ve been thinking that I need to hustle to get the words on paper. My writing speed has been different for every book I’ve written, and it’s perfectly okay if the process for this one is slower. In fact, considering the season of life I’m wading through, it should be expected.

The second realization was that no one is forcing me to use every single one of my lunch breaks to work on this specific book, and that’s been freeing. So, if I don’t feel like writing and want to read or spend that time working on another writing project, I’ve been doing that without making myself feel guilty. Or at least I’m trying. Sometimes my self-discipline enters toxic territory and I need to work on it.

September may hold another 15,000 words or it may render crickets for Follow the Arrows. Either way, it’ll be okay.

Talk to Me, Arrowheads!

If you’re a writer, have you ever guilt-tripped yourself for not writing every day? How did you break free from that mindset?

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

-Allyson 😀