Weekly writing goal update, part II

My initial goal was 4000 words a week.  This would let me write an 80,000 word novel in 20 weeks, or roughly 5 months.  I could then spend a month editing and searching for a publisher before delving into the third and final book in this world.  I have been writing at something more like 4000 words every three weeks, though.  However, there is truth to the whole, "the busier you are, the more productive you are" way of thinking, and as spring has been blossoming, I have been busier and busier.  This week was the first week that I passed my 4K/Wk goal.  I just tallied, and wrote  words in the last 6 days.  I'm going to keep writing tonight.  In order to finish my 80,000 words within 6 months, giving myself the 7th month for editing, I will need to write 80000-20270=59,730 words in the next 14 weeks, or 4266 words/wk.  Do-able, but not realistic.  More likely, I can write 3000 words for another 20 weeks, and pass the novel/novella split around mid-August, rather than the end of June.

3/4: I was not happy with the direction my story took in chapter 8.  I've read other authors comment that the story "got away from them".  I bore such a dislike for chapter 8 (in which I made Stanislaw Golomb a corporal and Doc a lieutenant) that I scrapped it and started over.  The new chapter 8 is over 2000 words, and the total for the book is now 14,783.  But the net result is that in nearly 3 weeks I only covered the ground of one more chapter.  I also began work on my first serious magazine article.  We'll see where that takes me.

3/15 Finished chapter 9, at 27 paragraphs that were mostly dialogue, so only 980 words.  Total for book is now 15,075 words, 42 pages in MS Word.

3/18 Finished chapter 10, lots of dialogue, 48 paragraphs and 1333 words.  Total for book is now 16,408 words, 45 pages in MS Word.  Also wrote my court statement this week and continue to work on the article.

3/21 Scrapped the article after a google search proved that this topic has been written on by professionals in the field, with no added benefit from my weeks worth of research.  Finished chapter 11 today, 31 paragraphs, 1551 words.  Total for book is now 18,697.   This is not promising.  An 80,000 word book (DAW's minimum) in 6 months should mean 40,000 in 3 months.  It is now 10 days from the 3 month mark, and I haven't even hit half of that.  At this rate, it will take me slightly under a year to write this novel.

3/24  Finished chapter 12, 1859 words and 30 paragraphs.  Total for book is now 20,556, and the book is 54 pages long.

5/6 Wrote chapter 13 a month ago, but I'm not really happy with it.  Don't know if I'll keep it.