This one is going to be super quick. I’ve stumbled over (been shown) an important consideration for any perspective writer, freelancer, storyteller, blogger or any other creative person. I’ve rambled on about setting goals and how they help me. I’ve talked about making them manageable, dealing with failure, overcoming blocks and a host of other concerns. So far though I’ve thrown out monthly goals, finish this chapter, plot this, have this organised. If you are struggling (see me last month) the best thing that I can advise you to do is to set a small goal, a word target for the next day. I’m going to write 100 words or similar. Make it manageable. Up the target for the following day. Don’t get carried away with one day of solid writing, build slowly. Don’t start at 2k words per day build up to it. Once you have some momentum find a target your happy to keep hitting. For me I’m happy with 500 words a day, every weekday. If I can keep that up it will be a miracle. Remember that it is alright to fail (read my last post). Keep a log, record your progress. Build a habit of writing.
This little piece of advice/process has gotten me out of a funk. I can’t take credit for it though. The thanks goes to Arisillion from www.fantasy-writers.org He made a forum post asking everyone to post their targets. I love targets and goals and I was doing badly so thought I would start slowly. Here is my progress
| 06/12/2016 | 104 |
| 07/12/2016 | 192 |
| 08/12/2016 | 199 |
| 09/12/2016 | 437 |
| 10/12/2016 | – |
| 11/12/2016 | – |
| 12/12/2016 | 650 |
| 13/12/2016 | 516 |
| 14/12/2016 | 540 |
| 15/12/2016 | 536 |
| 16/12/2016 | 512 |
And I’m not even counting this blog. It might not seem like a lot but it’s over 2,500 of words this week and since I’ve started keeping track and setting daily targets I’ve written twelve times as many words as I wrote in the entirety of last month. I’ve made more progress on my novel than I have in ages. I’m almost finished chapter 10 and that’s while also writing a short story, dealing with university assignments, prepping for Christmas, taking time off to see the midnight premier of Star Wars: Rogue One (It’s awesome. Highly recommend everyone sees it) and today being super distracted by Mario Run (I so did not need an addictive plumber on my iPhone) so I’m feeling good. I’m taking the weekend off but on Monday I’m aiming for another 500 word and I’ll try and keep it going every business day until the end of the month. I’ll be back with more updates on my progress after the holidays and hopefully by then I will have thought of something interesting to talk/write about.
Thanks for reading. Obligatory picture of dog below.
woof. nailed it.
