So July has came and went. Damn that was fast.
So, where am I in progress of WHISKEY, BOOK 2 of the American Rebirth Series?
WORD COUNT: 58,000
Good news: The draft is almost done. It looks like the book will end up being around 70K+ words. I should have it done by this month! That in and of itself is a pretty awesome feeling. It took me three years to write the first draft for HOOD. It’ll take me about 3 months for WHISKEY.
Bad news: I only wrote 28,000 words in July. To give myself a break, I have been going through some pretty strenuous crap in my life. So there is that. But reality is, I fell short of my 2,000 words/day goal by a pretty sizeable margin, and I wrote less than I did in June.
I’m starting to think that word-count-hitting is a poor motivator. Aside from feeling satisfied that I hit my goals, it’s still mostly just a weight around my neck. Truth is I write most prolifically when I get in a flow and/or get really excited about the scene I’m writing.
I think I’d be better off just focusing on what gets me most excited about whatever current scene I’m writing. Last night I churned out 2,300 words pretty easily, because I really felt in the groove and felt excited about all the little details.
Anyway, I’m still trying to figure out optimal writing/motivation goals for full-time writing. As of right now, I’m just going to set the goal of having the manuscript done by August 15th. In the meantime I’m going to try and figure out something that makes the day-to-day writing pressure not… well… feel like pressure, lol.
Can’t wait to get it done and published already. I’m really pretty damn proud of how much I’ve written this summer so far.
-Evan Pickering
Evan Pickering - Author 
Evan. Congrats on the progress. 3 questions as i couldn’t find an email link on this site
1. When you released HOOD, did you release at $0.99 and then change it to $2.99 a few weeks or a month later?
2. How did you land the Mike Sanford interview?
3. What promotion did you do for Hood when you released it initially?
Hi Ed,
1. It’s been 2.99 since release and I’ve never changed it aside from KCD’s
2. He came to me and asked me to be on his podcast through Goodreads. Both of my interviews have been through goodreads now that I think about it.
3. I didn’t do any promotion sites until my 2nd KCD 4 months in. The only promotion I did was through twitter and facebook just reaching out to people, offering free copies to interested parties and running some goodreads giveaways. I was pretty rigorous with posting on social media but to be honest it’s hard to know what was most effective
Hope that helps!
Evan