Okay, so 250 words a day is not working so well for me. Here I am on day 4 of that and I should have 1,000 words toward my novel... I'm about 1,000 words shy of that mark at a nice round zero.
New determination hit me this morning though, and I think it might just work. I am not going to promise to write a page worth of words, or a paragraph or anything else.
My new goal. 5by5. I am going to write five words by 5 p.m. each day of the week 5 days a week. If the muses want to keep going I certainly will not make them stop, but the goal here is, I have to have five words added the page by 5 p.m. every weekday (M-F).
Five words ain't too much. And if you leave out the 'ain't ain't a word' type cheats, then it gets harder to keep your count to just five words, because - Five words is not too much work to fit into an afternoon.
2 comments:
I admire your goal and hope you'll keep it up. I think the problem with setting a word goal when working on something specific is that the author (meaning me) always gets bound up in the thought that the words have to count because THIS IS IT!!! THIS IS THE THING!!! If I screw this up I'll never get the novel done. That ruins it for me, frankly. So.... I came up with the mantra, "Write now, fix later." That gave me the freedom to set a goal and push myself. I set the goal for 2 pages, defined by the little page count number, so two pages could be one page and a line or two on the next if I was feeling frustrated. That's about 250 words. I promised myself I could write two pages a day. If I got to that second line on the second page and had no energy, creativity, will, or whatever, I quit and lived my day. If I was on fire, I kept going. Sometimes I hit 15 pages in a single day. It was great. So, I know where you're at with this 250 words a day and I hope you keep going with it. It will pay off for you.
When I was taking a writing course someone offered me the advice of "Focus not on the words, but on the overall story. The words are for revision number one."
I've found that to be a very good bit of advice, because as long as I am trying to make each word perfect, I am going nowhere. If i grab the word that works and leave perfection for later revisions, then I can make very good time in my writing. Averaging on 8,500 words a work day when the muses are talking to me.
And just from saying "I'll write five words today, just five..." and not worrying about how perfect those words are. (I'm a perfectionist, so not worrying about perfection is a major thing for me.)
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