Today’s Plan

Planning seems to be a key to better word counts for me. You’d think this was just a revisit of the schedule I said I was never going to revisit or the daily writing time quota that I decided didn’t work. You’d be wrong.

This feels nothing like that. I sit down and create a plan, either the night before or the morning of and I base that plan on how I’ve been feeling, how I think I’ll feel, what other plans I have, and what goal I want to hit. I also allow for experiments.

9:30–10:30 (376 words)
10:40–11:40 (413 words) (I’m behind at this point and I’m starting to think mornings are not my best time for writing. I consistently seem to do worse in the early morning hours. The new school year has also brought about a lack of sleep that I need to get a handle on asap.)
3:40–4:40 (524 words)
4:50–5:50 (569 words) (can’t seem to pick up speed today!)
7:30–8:30 (609 words)
8:40–9:40 (stopped counting and just wrote)

Partial success! I made it to 2,692. Another day where I came up short of my goal but still reached the minimum I need to stay on track with my plan for a higher daily word count.

Today’s goal is 4,000 words in 6 hour long blocks, where the goal is to reach 725 words in each block by doing ten 5 minute sessions and maintaining a 73 word average per session.

The hefty 4,000 word goal is because tomorrow I’ll be having fun and I can say with certainty that I’ll be pushing myself just to hit my minimum.

I’ve had to adjust the start times for my later sessions.

What I Believe

I try really hard not to push my beliefs at other people, but today I came really close to sharing something on Google+ that would have made some of my beliefs very obvious to the world. Since I have so many family members and friends who absolutely don’t share many of my beliefs, I didn’t. But it’s made me wonder just how much of myself I hide from others, even those who are closest to me. Why is it so difficult to be myself and not feel apologetic for who I am? Why can’t I just say, hey this is what I think and if you don’t agree, that’s okay, because I’ll still love you? And as I’m typing this, I think I just asked the wrong question. Why can’t I say, hey this is what I think and if you don’t agree, that’s okay, I know you’ll still love me? But the answer to that scares me. I think I’m afraid that while I’m the type of person to understand and love people who believe differently than me, I’m not convinced that most people are the same. And there’s two ways that can go. My loved ones will be hurt that I didn’t believe in them, or I’ll be proved true. I can’t win this one. So I don’t play.

It’s apparent after typing this that I don’t believe love is unconditional.

Now I’m sad. I think I just broke my own heart.

It’s also obvious that I need to meet more people in real life who think more like me.

In the world of my books, I’m free to write what I want, and I think that’s what I’ll go do now.