A good measure of progress

Confession: I lived today on fast forward, or maybe pause. What do you call it when you just watch the Olympics and nap?

Reading:

• "My Brother Eli" by Joseph Epstein
  
• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
  

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold"

Revising:

• "The Revenant"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status (in chronological order of completion of first draft)

• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Submitted to The American Drivel Review, July 30th, 2008
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Cora and the Sea" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to Tea: A Magazine, July 29th, 2008
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Hattie Donnelly's Favorite Doll" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to 24 Hour Short Story Contest, July 27th, 2008

What is a sufficient measure of progress for writing? All this crap that I copy out every day is supposed to remind me where I stand in terms of a writing career, but more and more, it has begun to fade into the background where I don't even read it anymore. Partly that is because last week my attention was otherwise occupied, but that's no excuse.

I read Brandon Sanderson's blog, where he uses progress bars on the left side of his blog to update his readers on the current status of his projects. It's all percentage based, but I'm guessing he has some underlying numbers to back that up. I would also bet that those numbers are useful for him, not just interesting to his readership.

For my writing projects, I feel I need to do the same thing. I would like to be able to update those numbers on a daily basis, either revision by percentage, or new story by word count or page count.

In fact, I'm going to make this goal. Every day, I need to update my progress in some way or another. I've gotten into the habit of doing this blog every day, and that's great, but if I let it become an end in itself, then I've defeated the point. This blog has served to keep me connected to writing when I haven't felt like it, but when I do feel like it, there should be a lot more going on behind the scenes than is immediately apparent.

So starting on Monday, that's what I'll do. Every day, something will update. What I'm reading, what I'm writing, what I'm revising, what I'm submitting. On the day I get a response on a story, that can be my update for the day, thereby earning me a "free" day. In that way, I know that I will have constant progress.

So far, I've managed to keep from sliding backwards. Now I just need to keep going forwards.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 5
  
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 3