Hey Folks,
A few of you who shared your writing goals with me either in the comments or via email. Thanks! I like knowing what other writers are doing and how they do it.
Okay, so I’m gonna talk about goals again. As always, this is just me tossing in my two cents, nothing more.
If you have a weekly or monthly goal, remember it gets easier if you divide it by five or six or seven and break it down to a daily goal. You can’t always eat an elephant or even a good-sized cow, but you can almost always take a few bites.
I wish I’d realilzed all this back when I had a weekly goal of writing one short story per week (like at least one of you is doing now). Almost every week, the deadline snuck up on me.
One week I even wrote a short story titled “Deadline” and posted it to my free story of the week blog with maybe an hour to spare. (grin)
The thing is, “short story” is an abstract measurement. That’s why it was able to sneak up on me almost every week. It doesn’t consist of a particular word count.
But had I broken even that goal down into daily bites, it would have gone a lot more smoothly and I probably would have written a lot more stories. Using a daily goal would enable me to see my progress, and that’s almost always a good thing.
Most of my short stories are around 3,000 to 4,000 words. If I had it to do over again, I’d set a daily goal of 1000 words per day (that’s only one hour, or two half-hours, or four quarter-hours). I’d have easily written 7000 words in most weeks, so two short stories.
Of course, you can also set the daily goal to a time limit (one hour, or a half-hour, or whatever) or to a lesser or greater word count. Whatever’s comfortable for you.
I no longer use a weekly goal myself because I see no reason to let an elephant into the room in the first place. That’s just me and my rabid fear of elephants. (grin)
As it stands, my daily goal is 2500 words. But that’s the average I’d like to maintain over a year, so I might inch that up to 3000 per day soon.
If I do that, even with built-in (and life-roll) occasional days off, I should be able to hit the average. And if I squeak out another 240 words per day (on average), I’ll hit a million words of new fiction this year.
That’s an elephant too, of course, which is why it isn’t a firm goal. It’s just something I’d like to do at least once. (grin)
***
Weather, weather, weather. At the moment (shortly before sunrise), the prognosticators in Tucson, which is in the much warmer Sonoran Desert, say it’s a balmy 41° in my little town of St. David.
In actuality, it’s 32°. That tells me despite their prediction of 73° for the afternoon high, it might reach 64°.
I report all this to say I’m glad I have the Adobe Hovel, where the temp is currently around 50° and where, even on a 100° summer day, the temp won’t get much over 80°. (grin)
***
Whew. I have to tell you, I wasn’t sure I was going to get my word count today. I’ll be glad when the cycling is finished so I can Just Write the all-new stuff.
The words I’m writing now are new, but I’m mostly enhancing scenes and things like that, so sometimes it’s slow going.
Back soon.
Of Interest
Nothing today, really.
Fiction Words: 2609
Nonfiction Words: 620 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 3229
Writing of The Origin Novel (working title)
BF…………… 32658 words.
Day 1…… 2689 words. Total words to date…… 35347
Day 2…… 2636 words. Total words to date…… 37983
Day 3…… 3189 words. Total words to date…… 41172
Day 4…… 2525 words. Total words to date…… 43697
Day 5…… 2609 words. Total words to date…… 46306
Total fiction words for the month……… 13648
Total fiction words for the year………… 13648
Total nonfiction words for the month… 2730
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 2730
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 16378
Calendar Year 2018 Novels to Date………………………… 0
Calenday Year 2018 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
Calendar Year 2018 Short Stories to Date……… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………………… 27
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………………………………… 4
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……………………………… 182