I did not spend yesterday or today writing lots of words.
I did read a few chapters of the book I’m trying to get back into and do some edits last night, adding a few words to the story, then spent about half an hour writing this morning, but I’m very far from where I wanted to be right now on my word count.
That puts me in a pickle, because the word counts I need to reach each day to reach my goal for the week are above anything I’ve ever done in a single day—and I’ll need to keep it up for 3 days in a row.
The word counts aren’t impossible, but they kind of really feel that way. There’s a mental barrier there at 6,000 words—I’ve yet to go above 5,758 words in a day, and then there’s the creative barrier, and the energy barrier.
I need about 20,175 words in 3 days, or about 6,606 words each day. At my usual output and ratio of writing time to break time, there just isn’t enough time in the day to reach those goals unless I’m at the absolute top of my game.
Also, I kind of suspect the reason I stalled out today and didn’t get restarted on my writing is because there’s some stuff I don’t remember that I need to know for me to keep going with this story. I’m going to have to take some time to read some of the previous chapters of this book if I have any hope of finishing the book quickly. Meaning I really can’t get back to writing tonight until I’ve done that.
Since I just did an experiment earlier this week, timing my read through of the last book I finished, I know I can read 3 chapters an hour (taking approx. 14 minutes per chapter, plus a necessary break). I read every word at this speed, and it’s great for catching typos and such. I’m on chapter 15, but I already went through chapters 12–15 last night.
So 4 hours of reading to catch up to where I am.
I do believe this is a “have to do it” thing.
So, decision made, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to use the time I have available tonight to do this, and then get up tomorrow with the intent to write as much as I possibly can.
The only other option is to do hours of reading tonight, go right into the writing, and stay up so late that I’m miserable tomorrow and get nothing done. :o
Considering how many words I’ll still need to write tomorrow even if I have a fantastic night of writing tonight, I need to avoid that outcome. ;)