Last month I challenged myself to writing a minimum of 500 words every day for 30 days. This was after wondering why I found it easier to commit to a gym routine instead of a writing one. The Saturday just past marked the conclusion of the challenge. So, how did I do?
Out of 30 days, I wrote 500 words or more on 25 of them. When I checked in halfway through the challenge, I decided that I’d dedicate the remaining 10 days to only counting words that contributed to my new book (or a story of some kind). I’m pleased to say that for the last 12 days of the challenge, I did just that.
If you’re interested in more figures, over the 30 days I wrote 19,587 words, of which 10,101 were for my new book. That’s 10,000 words I otherwise wouldn’t have written. I know this for a fact. I would have put off starting work on the new book for another couple of months. Now, however, I have 10,000 words to work with.
It’s also got my brain working out the rest of the plot. And true, there’s a big chunk of what I’ve written that I’ve already mentally marked for deletion because the direction has changed, but without those words already there, I would still be behind.
What have I learnt?
I’m not habitually inclined to write new stories unless I’m ‘in the mood’. But, you know what? I wasn’t in the mood to write on most days. Usually I’d have gotten through a whole bunch of other work and then realise the day was nearly over and I hadn’t written anything for myself.
I’d hesitate, procrastinate a bit on other tasks, until I got stern with myself, opened up Scrivener and told myself that I just had to get 500 words down. Whether I was in the mood or not, I could always meet that target.
I write fast. I time myself when I write, using a computer program that counts down with a noisy timer. It helps me focus and it has the added benefit of showing me just how long things take. For instance, on average, writing 500 words takes me 15 minutes. Some days it took a little longer but generally I could convince myself that if I just took 15 minutes, I’d get it done.
Whether this extrapolates out to 2000 words in an hour, I’ve yet to time, but I estimate I could get at least 1500 if the ideas are flowing.
Writing in the afternoon is possibly not the best thing for me. I’ve read and been given lots of writing advice that says writing in the morning is the best because you’re free and your will power isn’t yet depleted.
I find it difficult to commit to this when I have other projects on the go. I think this has more to do with which project is more urgent as last year, while working on Burning Blood, I’d write and edit in the morning with great success and often get in about three or four hours. I think I’ll have to flip things around.
Having a goal helps. This challenge has helped keep me on track. There was no built-in reward or punishment system (other than having to front up to a minimal number of readers and say I’d failed) but the act of recording writing goals and targets reached on a spreadsheet was good motivation.
Where to from here?
Keep going of course. I took Sunday off as we visited friends, which took up the whole day. Monday I wrote this blog post as well another 1200 words of my new book (I was inspired), and then Tuesday and Wednesday were also on target (537 and 571 respectively).
What I know I have to keep doing is maintaining some record and accountable, therefore my word count spreadsheet will continue. I also like being able to see how many words I’ve written for the new book.
While I’m not up to the level I’d like, where I’d write at least 2000 words per day, I think this has been a good warm-up for getting there. Baby steps, as it were. Let’s hope the running leaps aren’t too far off.
If you have a system in place to help you reach daily word targets, or if you’re embarking on your own writing challenge, I’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment below.
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