Family History Writing Challenge – Week 2

Week 1 was a so-so week, which you can read about here.  I did a little bit better this week, but I still didn’t write every day.  Here’s how Week 2 went for me.

On February 8, I drafted my Surname Saturday post about my Schwartz family from Luxembourg.  The post ended up being 2,904 words (14% over my 200 words/day goal) and took about 2.5 hours to write and format.

Then of course came the weekend.  It’s the only chance I get to spend with my husband, plus it was his birthday and Valentine’s Day wrapped together.  So writing had to take a backseat.

Come Monday, the 11th, I decided to do a write-up about one of the families I blogged about in the Surname Saturday post.  I wrote a 412 word “bio” about John and Margarethe (Kremer) Schwartz, that I plan to turn into some sort of scrapbook collage.  The writing, along with a little bit of research, took about an hour-and-a-half.

There was just too much going on Tuesday, so no writing that day.

On Wednesday, day 13, I drafted a blog post for the Genealogy By the States theme.  This week’s state was Massachusetts, so I continued the story of Gov. John Webster from the Connecticut post last week.  That post was 623 words and took about 2 hours.

And finishing out Week 2, I wrote 478 words related to my Garrison family.  Much of this writing was compiling my research, analysis, and thoughts on a tricky project.  But the point is, it’s out of my head and written down!

So my total word count for the week was 4,417.  And even though I only wrote four out of seven days (hey, that’s better than two days last week!!), I’m was way over my weekly goal of 1,400. 

My overall total so far is 6,156, which is well over where I should be with a 200 words/day goal.  In fact, I’ve actually written in two weeks (technically six days), what I set out to accomplish in four weeks, so that’s pretty good.  By looking at my word count each day so far, I think that my 200 words/day goal was maybe a little on the low side.  But I’m not about to change it, as I start my Scrivener course on Tuesday, which will have me busy everyday into March.  This was part of the reason I kept my word count low, because I knew half the month was going to be super-busy.

How are you progressing in the Family History Writing Challenge?  Drop me a note and let me know!