Huh. So is August like, becoming some sort of Good Luck Charm Month or something for me? Because goddamn. I had a very good month again this month. Both in terms of wordcount success AND with life. And if I go back to previous writing journal entries I see successes all over the place. In August 2024 I wrote 66,198 words and set a single-day wordcount record of 15,419 words in a day that is still standing a year later. In August 2023 I wrote 26,108 words, passing my quota by a good 7K or so at the time despite being sick from covid, and got lucky and didn't suffer any long covid symptoms afterward. And in August 2022 I may have failed due to a move, but the following month in September I wrote 48,462 words to catch up on what I missed immediately. This is like... making me wonder if there's like a God of August who I pleased or something and keeps blessing me.

Heh but you you know what made it possible, at least this year? Work gave me 2 extra days off on the week before Labor Day again this year, as we were shut down for Physical Inventory again this year. Not only did I use my Inventory Days off to write, but I also FINALLY managed to work up the courage to take my car to a new repair place and have it inspected.

Y'all probably know how long I've been stressing over perceived issues with this damn car. My paranoid side kept imagining the suspension or shocks or wheel bearings could be bad. I also was determined not to take it to the shitty-ass dealership again after the way they gouged me last time. (Seriously, $1600 for two brakes and a coolant pump is fucking criminal.) I'd been struggling to even fucking find a new repair place that was reputable and not buried under a 5+ week waitlist. I finally found one, and in order to preserve my vacation time at work, scheduled the appointment with them for my Inventory Off Time. Miraculously they found absolutely nothing wrong with my suspension or shocks or anything else expensive. The wubwubwubwub sound that has been plaguing my car was just caused by the tires being old and worn out. It still cost me $750 to replace all four, but that's a far cry from the fucking four figure bill my catastrophizing brain was expecting. The moment I drove away from the shop on those new tires it was smooth and silent and drove like a dream. Lemme tell you, finally getting that peace of mind back has been a panacea to my brain. I just... never realized that tire wear could cause weird noises like that. I thought tire wear was purely a visual thing. Not that I'm complaining.

Granted I STILL have that lingering health issue that I need to go to a doctor for, and I am still terrified of current events, so it's not like I have every major stressor taken off of my plate yet. But if I can get off my ass and find a doctor to see and he can treat my issue then that'll be another massive step toward peace of mind. I'm getting ahead of myself though, let's break down how much butt this month kicked.

AUGUST 2025 WRITING SUMMARY

-PRIMARY OBJECTIVES-
✔️ -Homura is Where the Heart is (Comm for ah1987): FINISHED! 10,013 new words!
✔️ -Mutagen Origins Chunk 4: FINISHED! 10,844 new words!
✔️ -Editing of The River in the Valley - Chunk 2: FINISHED! 18,664 words edited, adding 421 new words!
❌ -Editing of Tellurium Chains - Chunk 2: 0 words edited

-SECONDARY OBJECTIVES-
❌ -Editing of Crossing of the Paths - Book 2: Darkness & Light - Chunk 6: 0 words edited
✔️ -Crossing of the Paths - Book 2: Darkness & Light - Chunk 7: Wrote 1,090 new words on a goal of any
✔️ -Tellurium Chains - Chunk 3: Wrote 762 new words on a goal of any
✔️ -Arina is All Chunk 12: FINISHED! Wrote 19,077 new words!
✔️ -The River in the Valley - Chunk 3: Wrote 1,262 new words on a goal of any

✔️ -TOTAL WORDS WRITTEN IN AUGUST 2025: 43,048 words!
❌ -TOTAL WORDS EDITED IN AUGUST 2025: 18,664 words

PHEW. Fuckin hell, wow. I may not have really hit my editing goal for the month, but I blew my writing goal outta the water! This is the second month in a row with 43K words! I blew past my quota by an amazing 15,270 words! Taking that out of the 22,052 leftover from last month, that means my year-on deficit has now shrunk to a mere 6,782 words! Given this damn deficit was nearly 40K words at its peak, I'd say I've done a truly impressive job of digging myself out of the hole! Moreover, I managed to finish the rough draft on the first commission from my queue! FINALLY, after months upon months of that queue being stuck frozen, we have movement! I chose to work on ah1987's comm since it was the shortest at 10K words, and it still needs to be edited, but I'm super happy I'm finally beginning to cut through this. I'll probably stop taking new comms on until it's fully cleared again too, since my backlog of story ideas has continued to multiply and it's been stretching my focus between too many projects at once and leading to years between updates. Arina is All being a prime example, FA says it's been TWO YEARS now since my last post. Thankfully I managed to finish new chunks for both it AND Mutagen this month though, so if you've been eagerly waiting on those, get ready! They're only an editing session away from coming online!

So yeah, overall this may not be a 100% completion month but hell, I'd call it a win. I've managed to only make my editing queue worse by writing all this though, lol. Next month I'm gonna have to make sure I clamp down and really focus on that.

Speaking of next month!

SEPTEMBER 2025 WRITING GOALS

Let's put just one comm on my primary goals and then fill the rest with editing, shall we?

-PRIMARY OBJECTIVES-
-Untitled Comm for lateinshowing: Expected 15,000 words
OR
-Untitled Comm for Kimil Shadewing: Expected 12,000 words
OR
-Untitled Comm for dreadfulart: Expected 15,000 words
PLUS
-Editing of Homura is Where the Heart is: 10,013 words to edit
-Editing of Crossing of the Paths - Book 2: Darkness & Light - Chunk 6: 34,715 words to edit
-Editing of Mutagen Origins Chunk 4: 17,782 words to edit
-Editing of Arina is All Chunk 12: 26,895 words to edit
-Editing of Tellurium Chains - Chunk 2: 17,541 words to edit

-SECONDARY OBJECTIVES-
-Crossing of the Paths - Book 2: Darkness & Light - Chunk 7: ANY wordcount
-Tellurium Chains - Chunk 3: ANY wordcount
-The River in the Valley - Chunk 3: ANY wordcount
-ROULETTE SPIN SLOT!!! - ANY wordcount

Total Expected Writing Wordcount for September 2025: 27,778-34,560 words
Total Expected Editing Wordcount for September 2025: 106,946 words

Notice how the Comms are the ONLY writing items on the primary objectives list this month, lol. Ideally I bang out one comm, then work on secondaries to get the rest of the way toward my minimum quota. I left a bunch of fun stuff on my secondaries though, and my wordcount stretch goal has been tallied based on the ideal fantasy scenario of me managing to do enough to erase the entirety of the rest of my deficit this month. Granted, I have absolutely no extra days off this month other than Labor Day, which I primarily used for relaxation and making this journal entry rather than writing, so I may not be able to feasibly do that much on top of clearing an editing queue THAT DAMN CHONKY. As far as I'm concerned, just making minimum quota and clearing all, or even most of that gigantic editing pile, would be a win in my book.

I am going to start looking for a new doctor this month too now that my car fears have been resolved, and if I can get that done and my health issue resolved, then I may just pull off another miracle this month. 2025 has been a real fucking challenge for me but I think I've done some really impressive things. Cross your fingers for me, loves!