I posted about my goals in the last post. The first hurdle is to get to a sustained average of 1,300 words a day.
It doesn’t really matter if it’s just an average or a daily minimum word count, as long as I’m writing about 9,100 words a week.
Based on my own history, expecting myself to binge write a whole bunch of words two or three days a week is unrealistic. I will need to write daily or at least most days to reach this goal.
Getting myself to maintain any kind of consistency with the writing itself has never been easy for me. For the last several years, it’s been unbelievably tough. But I’m persistent, and I’m here to try again. :)
Last night, I sat down and played with some numbers. I really wanted to see what it would take to get myself to a point where I am earning a really comfortable living from writing my fiction, using somewhat conservative numbers but not so conservative that it is depressing.
The outcome wasn’t unexpected.
But as usual, even though the numbers are hopeful and seem realistically possible, they are the same numbers I keep coming back to—and that I have yet to be able to reach and sustain for more than a few days in a row.
To make a living, I need to write about 1,300 words a day if sales stay about the same for the number of words written based on historical earnings for 2022–2023. To live very comfortably, I need to write about 3,600 words a day. Both these numbers are rounded up to the nearest 100 words.
I’ve tried in the past to reach and sustain a 3,600 words a day streak and failed at it even though it only requires about 600 words an hour for 6 hours a day. I can write 600 words an hour, and it’s not a terrible stretch for me. But the 6 hours a day, or even the routine of maintaining daily writing, is where I hit a wall.
All that said, I am here today, writing this, because I want to give it another go. I really want to live more comfortably than I do now and anything averaged out long term between 1,300 and 3,600 words a day has the potential to get me there.
This post is a few days old, but there’s value here I think so I’ve decided to post it even though I wasn’t going to originally.
First thing I did after I woke up this morning was open OneNote and type a note to myself (this was after recognizing that I just didn’t have what it took to hit 3,600 words every day).
I think I’m going to settle on a daily goal of 2400 words. As much as I’d like to write 3600 words every day I’m just not sure that kind of pressure is going to work.
Then I looked at my calendar to adjust my goals and saw what 3,600 words looks like every day as a time commitment. I re-opened OneNote.
After looking again at my calendar, it’s obvious that I’m just getting scared. But even if I have a bad day if I do all six sessions I’m almost guaranteed to keep a 2000-2400 words a day average which is something I’ve wanted for a very long time.
I can do this.
And I can. I can do this.
The fact is, it’s not just fear. It’s also perfectionism. I don’t have to throw away my goal for 3,600 words just because I might not reach it every day. And if I don’t reach it every day, well, failing at something is better than not trying at all. :D
It’s the only way to stretch and grow.
So, yeah, still trying. 2020 is the year of the 3,600 words a day goal. :D
Since I wrote that, I’ve made some changes to my goals and have decided not to micro plan my writing time so strictly but the one thing I haven’t done is back away from the big numbers. I intend to grow this year, and I intend to learn, and I do not intend to let the fear of failure keep me from trying to stretch myself.
Whatever your goals, you shouldn’t let it stop you either.
Let’s see, yesterday’s word count was 190 words, just enough to keep my streak alive (I needed 163 per the new rules).
Today I’m trying something a little different. Yesterday was a disaster and I think it’s because I let the numbers get in my head.
I did a brain dump last night right before bed and decided it was time to scratch the goal based schedule. I knew it was a bad idea when I created it, even though it seemed like a really good idea at the time (as is always the case).
Since the schedule didn’t work and I’m not willing to give it even more time to get in my head and make me hate my life :D, I’m getting back to basics today.
Writing is fun.
Writing is what I want to do.
All I have to do is let everything else go for a while and sit down and enjoy it.
Toward that end, I’ve blocked out some time today (6 hours in two big 3 hour chunks) for writing and only writing. :-)
I have a goal to get to 2,000 words in the first block and to make it to 4,000 in the second.
I’m sure some of you are thinking a schedule is a schedule, right, so what’s the deal?, but I’m an overthinker by nature, and there is a world of difference between these kinds of schedules to me and my muse.
Most of the time when I’m taking about schedules, I’m specifically talking about that micro-planning thing I tend to do. I’m almost never talking about the simple process of blocking out a larger, unstructured chunk of time on my calendar that tells me I need to get myself to the computer and do some writing.
That kind of schedule is almost certainly going to be necessary for me to make sure I don’t continue to let time get away from me. I’m not good with time. I’ve mentioned that before. I gotta have something to keep me in line or I’m doomed to live by mood alone–and we all know where that’ll get me.
In the middle of a big fat streak of zero word days, that’s where. ;-)
I’ve set a hard deadline to finish one of my novels by Monday, and that’s going to take some focus. I need to put in the time to get another 5,000 to 10,000 words probably.
This current one, as usual, has decided to go long. It’s currently 8,000 words longer than I had hoped, and 63 words longer than my maximum length goal, and I just have a feeling I’m going to need all those extra words to wrap this one up.
Now, time to start on today’s writing.
(A 40 minute power outage just as I was finishing this post nixed that idea, but the power is back on now, so I’m getting ready to dig in!). :-)
I wrote 121 words at about midnight. If I didn’t have that 100 word minimum that I require for a day to count in my daily fiction writing streak (159 days), I wouldn’t have bothered with more than 2 words, guaranteed. :D
I just had either a great idea or a stupid one that’s going to be the end of this thing. I think I’m going to require the number of words of the number of days long the streak is for the day to count. So, if I want today to count, I’ll need 160 words.
Maybe it’ll keep me from getting more bored. I’m already a bit bored with the daily writing as it is. Something about requiring myself to write just really makes me want to not do it. I hate being told what to do, even by myself. I’m contrary like that. ;D And I really hate arbitrary numbers. I try to always find a reason to pick the numbers I do for my goals.
As for today, I already have half my post written, and I’ll post it later tonight.
I’m trying to get into a routine here: daily writing, evening posting of the blog, so I’m not distracted from fiction writing by the blogging. It’s not going so well so far.
I wrote a massively long post then deleted it, because it was too personal and too rambling, so I guess that means I need to hop on over to the writing and let myself work out my issues there. :)
So, two things. I didn’t stop at 9 p.m. last night. The writing was going well and I didn’t want to stop. I also waited to post this until today, which is the next day. I did warn that I wouldn’t always be posting the day of, but I had hoped to last a little longer than this. ;D However, posting is posting and that’s all I’m going to worry about, so it’s a win. :D I’m posting.
Yesterday’s word count was a lot more on par with my January and 2020 goals, but still fell short.
I wrote 1,670 words. Since it’s my first 1,000+ word day since December 17th, I’m also calling that a win!
I made the call a few days ago that I’m just going to have to live with the fact that I need the timers to focus. Otherwise, I don’t stick with the writing. Too many other things are always grasping for my attention and that’s just a fact of life for me. This is the year I make peace with that. :-)
Even with the timers, I spent hours at the computer yesterday and logged 2.55 hours of active timed writing.
Today I’m aiming for a solid 5 hours.
I’ve said before, it takes me far longer than an hour to get an hour of timed writing, for reasons I can’t truly explain. So this is a challenge for me for sure! ;D
Tracking time to see where the time went between sessions did nothing but show me that I hate tracking time and that I switch between things too fast to make it make sense to even try. So I gave up any kind of actual time tracking a long time ago.
But everyone is different and what might be a challenge for me might be easy for someone else. Just like I find it easy to keep my stories all in my head. I don’t write down much of anything. I just remember. When I need a refresh, I skim the story and it all comes back to me in a flash.
I don’t need extensive notes about my series, and I still manage to do oodles of call backs and threading of big arcs and I don’t really know how I do it.
I also find it really strange when other writes claim they can’t remember writing something—I believe them, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t really understand it. That is definitely not how it works for me. I can tell you the plots of every book I’ve written and give you details about those people as if they were beloved relatives, and that has held true even as my catalog of finished books has grown. :D
Well, time to get to work! I have a book to finish this coming week if I can and I’m hoping to make good progress on that today. It’s sunny and beautiful outside and I want to do some writing at my sunny desk before it gets dreary again. :D
I haven’t had the most promising start to December.
Where I am: 1,334 words
Where I’m supposed to be: 4,000 words.
I don’t want to say I’m going to try to catch up today and even get ahead, because I’m not that good at meeting goals like this, but that’s what I’m going to do. :D
My fingernails are annoying me on the keyboard today, but they’re too short to trim. The house is cold and my coffee has gotten cold fast. I’m going to heat it, then start writing.
I’ll probably do some 50 minute sessions. I like those. Enough time to really focus and short enough so that I can move often enough not to get stiff.
Either way, as I said before, I’m not tracking time or speed, just using the timers to focus me on the writing.
On another topic, I’ve decided to change my main writing goal.
I’m upping my daily word count goal from 2,000 to 2,200. I’m also going back to trying to reach and maintain that as a daily average instead of a daily minimum. The minimum just isn’t working for me, but I can see myself reaching that as a daily average and maintaining it.
I know I haven’t done it before, long-term, but I can. I really believe that.
Third year in a row I’ve gotten this little notice about the Five Percent Club from Pocket. Time to change. I don’t want a fourth. :D
There was a time when I thought Pocket was the second best option for all the articles I was used to clipping into Evernote to read later. I do not think that anymore.
I’ve found that over the last three years I’ve read more of the stuff I’ve saved in Pocket and it is easier to keep up with too. Most of the things I read, I discard after the fact. What I don’t discard, I archive in Pocket. My archive in Pocket is very small.
OneNote isn’t optimized for reading, and I never have been able to use it the same way I used Evernote. But that’s okay.
Pocket is compatible with every device I have, still–even the oldest–beating out both OneNote and Evernote. (Joplin has a very nice interface for reading articles, but I haven’t installed the web clipper extension and I’m not sure I want to). Pocket has been the perfect tool for collecting reading material to read in my spare time.
And that brings me to my 2019 goal to read fewer articles in Pocket.
:D Yes, it’s weird. But I’ve gotten this little notice three years running now, and I don’t want to get it again. Let me explain.
1. I read too many random articles I find on the web.
2. I’m wasting a lot of good reading time doing it.
3. I’m cluttering my brain with repetitive information I don’t need, and what happens when you repeat things? You remember them, they become habits, and you get stuck in a rut. No joke.
For example, I might send ten articles about, oh, I don’t know, procrastination to Pocket, and then read them all, even knowing the chance of me discovering or realizing anything new from them is infinitesimal.
It all comes down to this: I am wasting good brain power going over the same things time and again, when I should be reserving that time for deeper, longer, more meaningful learning on topics I haven’t already studied to death.
I am finally settling into a nice work flow that does not rely on timers to keep me writing. I’m occasionally dipping into more than one story at a time, but I’m surprised at how often I’m staying focused on one book.
It’s obvious to me now that something was wrong then, but isn’t that how it always is?
I can’t remember at this point exactly when I decided I was going to seriously focus on not using timers, because I’d posted about abandoning them, then went back to using them, before deciding to give them up one final time.
I fail a lot. I think the overwhelming number of posts I’ve put on this site where I candidly admit that I haven’t reached some goal I’ve set for the day tells that story well.
Night before last, I failed again. I didn’t write 500 words or 2,000 words, and I didn’t end up staying awake for a night of writing.
Yesterday, I didn’t do any writing at all. I’m not sure why, because I intended to write, but it didn’t happen.
But here’s how I see failure: it’s a chance for a fresh start.
Today, that’s what I’ve done. I’ve given myself a fresh start.
⇒ I will write a minimum of 500 words (255 already written and 245 to go).
⇒ I’ll do everything I can to write at least 2,000 words.
However, I have also come to the conclusion that I do have to start taking my stated goals more seriously. I’m not doing myself any favors by constantly failing to meet them. This easy acceptance of failure has set a bad precedent and become a habit I didn’t want to cultivate.
On that note, I’m going back to my writing. I have a book I haven’t given up hope of finishing this month and I need a lot of words for that to happen.
Update: I wrote 565 words. Not as many as I wanted but beyond that minimum. That’s an okay result. Definitely happy to have stuck to my resolve to get that minimum.
When I revisited getting rid of my timers, I thought the beginning of 2017 and the middle of 2017 was the last time I’d addressed the issue. But I was wrong. As I published my last post and checked through it as I usually do, I clicked the “corrective action“ tag.
It showed me a post I wrote in November 2017 called, appropriately, “Done with timers” that kind of shocked me. I had forgotten all about writing it.
First, no more timers. I’m not even talking about temporarily. I’m doing away with timers.
I know that didn’t work for me at the beginning of this year, but that was because I was using timers in conjunction with no schedule and no goals either. That was a mistake.
I know what I need as far as word counts: 500 words a day minimum, 3,000 words a day goal.
The goal is there to help make a particular dream I have a reality. I want to move. I want a new house. I want a pool. I need money to make that happen. :-)
I really don’t need to track anything else. Those are the numbers I need, each day. One is easily accomplished, the other is a stretch. Tracking my daily words is the only metric I need to know if I’m doing what I need to be doing (500 a day) or want to be doing (3,000 a day).
Swap out that 3,000 a day with my 2,000 words a day plan and this is pretty much what I’m doing now. I didn’t set a 500 a day minimum this time, but now that I’m reminded of that, I think I will.
I’m not going to forget and I’m not going to go back. I am done with timers. I mean done done done.
That 500 word minimum has the benefit of making yesterday’s word count an important success (I wrote 571 words, after all) and gives me something to push for tonight that’s more realistic than 2,000 words, because I’m not even going to pretend I’ll be able to go from the 53 words that I have to 2,000 words before I call it a night considering how late it is. But 500? Definitely possible.
And to top it off, this also means I have a 500 words a day streak going that I won’t want to break tonight. I mean, it’s only two days, but it’s two days in a row!
That’s a far cry from where I wanted to be by now when I started August. I’ve had a few good days, though. Specifically, the 16th and the 20th.
8/16 – 1,685
8/20 – 2,198
The rest of the days of this month have been mediocre at best.
Yesterday, I’d hoped for a repeat of my 2,000+ words day, but it didn’t happen. And today is looking even worse.
8/21 – 571 words
8/22 – 53 words (so far)
*Today is still in progress, although I’m not sure it’s going to get much better if I can’t find some way to convince myself to finish writing the scene I’m in the middle of. I just do not want to write the rest of this scene.
I’m trying very hard to decide if I want to delete the portion of the scene that I haven’t wanted to write today or to push on through. There’s also the fact that if I delete it and write, even though the words will be gone, I’ll at least be writing again. But it could lead me to end the day with in a negative position if I don’t write enough. However, the words aren’t doing me any good if they’re just getting in the way of my brain coming up with an alternative so getting rid of them could be my best way forward.
The best way to figure this all out is to start back through the chapter and just go with it, changing or deleting if I need to so the story can move forward again, but I’m just feeling very resistant to that and have been all day.
But… it’s time to decide and do something, because this book isn’t going to write itself and I’m trying to end the week with 14,000 words.
2198+571+53=2822
14000-2822=11178
(I really love how you can type math into OneNote and it solves it for you.) :D
I have 11,178 words still to write this week, and I should probably try to get a least a few (more) of them written tonight.
So last night I had this idea that maybe what was bothering me about this story was the way I handled the climax. I took my notebook up to bed with me and made a few notes, and then before I knew it, I’d written two pages of new material (and it’s a big notebook with narrow lines).
This is the notebook I’m talking about. I love this notebook. However, I’ve since realized that for long-term preservation of my notebooks, I’m going to have to abandon the metal spirals because of the potential for rust. Ah, well. I have three more in aqua and two in charcoal. I won’t leave them unused. I just won’t buy more.
Of course, the plan this morning was to get it entered and add the word count to yesterday’s total.
Only when I looked back at the scene I’d written in the climax where I would need to insert this (and go in a somewhat different direction) I realized I have a decent scene there and that the new material just wasn’t going to work.
On the other hand, I like the new material, so as far as I’m concerned it still happens in the book, just without the intervention of my main character. It’s part of the hidden story and I’m going to use it in the next book. Probably as the opening. In fact, just typing that has made me feel certain that, yes, the stuff I wrote last night (at least a chunk of it) will be the beginning of my next book in this series. :-)
(Hidden story is the part of the story that isn’t revealed in the story but that must occur within the time frame of the story for the other things to occur—not to be confused with backstory, which occurs before the start of the story.)
Hidden story in this book could easily become backstory in the next book, but since I’m thinking this little bit of hidden story is going to become the opening scene of the next book, it won’t be hidden story or backstory. It’ll just be part of the story. :-)
So, now I just need to get to work on today’s writing and finish this story.
First, no more timers. I’m not even talking about temporarily. I’m doing away with timers.
I know that didn’t work for me at the beginning of this year, but that was because I was using timers in conjunction with no schedule and no goals either. That was a mistake.
I know what I need as far as word counts: 500 words a day minimum, 3,000 words a day goal.
The goal is there to help make a particular dream I have a reality. I want to move. I want a new house. I want a pool. I need money to make that happen. :-)
I really don’t need to track anything else. Those are the numbers I need, each day. One is easily accomplished, the other is a stretch. Tracking my daily words is the only metric I need to know if I’m doing what I need to be doing (500 a day) or want to be doing (3,000 a day).
Update #1
My internet was giving me troubles this morning so I had to delay finishing this post, but that’s okay, because I spent the time writing.
I’ve written 405 words this morning and I need another 95 before I can stop for lunch. I’ll be back with an update when I have them. :-)
And I’m at 545. Yes, I’m going backwards. Except I’m not because I’m closing in on my ending. Consider it the cost of nearing the end. I clean up as I go.
Update #4
623 words were it for the day, but it is the official restart of my 500 words a day streak—if I can do it again today! Life happened, and I had a big chunk of time between 5:40ish and midnight that I didn’t get back to writing. I did a little more until I went to bed oh so late and was really sad that I didn’t push for more writing so I could finish. But I didn’t finish. Now it’s time to get started with today’s writing, so moving on.
The end of the year is approaching and I’ve decided to pursue a goal. My goal is to make this year—on track to be my worst year of production since I began tracking—into my best year, by 10,000 words.
The math.
Best year
268,191
This year
104,676
Difference + 10,000 words
173,515
Words to write every day to get there
2,169
It is without a doubt beyond my current skill level to write 2,169 words every day. On the other hand, it’s a short-term goal, because this is mid-October and this will all be over on December 31. So it’s possible I could average a high enough word count to do this.
Since it’s possible, I’m going to try.
The fact is, I believe I can do it. The problem is, I haven’t ever done it before. But—and there is a but!—I have record of the following numbers.
February 2003: I averaged 1,836 words a day for the month.
November 2015: I averaged 1,761 words a day for the month.
April 2016: I averaged 1,908 words a day for the month.
To make this year my best year by 10,000 words, I only need to average 2,169 words a day for 81 days. Then I can flake out and go back to 500 word days and it won’t matter at all for this particular goal.
Writing 2,169 words a day isn’t something I’m going to stew over every day since I’m already trying to write 3,000 words a day. My daily minimum remains 1,000 words. But now I have something to explain my desire to write more each day and that’s going to be helpful when my contrary self rears up and demands to know why I’m pushing myself so hard to write more.
I’m trying to come up with my goal for today. I think I’m done with the catch-up attempt for hours because I’m further behind now than I was when I started yesterday. On the other hand, this morning, I’ve already written for 13 minutes and put down 87 words of stuff. It’s a start.
I’m actually very concerned that I haven’t gained any speed or momentum after what feels like a significant time investment over the last few weeks. I’ve spent 47.93 hours writing in the last 19 days and my cumulative word count for all that time is 3,982 words.
3,982 ÷ 47.93 = 83 words an hour. I type at about 60 words a minute. Typing isn’t writing, I know, but has my brain really slowed down to the point that I can’t write at even 10 words a minute?
I’m in uncharted territory, because I can’t recall ever spending so much focused time writing and ending up with so little progress. It’s obvious something is going on with my writing that I don’t understand because my word counts have dwindled to half what they used to be just three years ago and I’ve lost a significant portion of the excitement I used to feel when I write.
I kind of feel like I’m making progress on the last of that, but the first—obviously—hasn’t improved or it wouldn’t be 33 days since my last day of 1,000+ words.
The fact is I’m trying. I don’t know what kind of hole it is I’m trying to dig myself out of but I am trying.
I want this career, and I’m not going to give up on myself without a fight.
So off I go again today, trying to make progress, or recapture some momentum, or something, anything that will prove the creative part of my brain hasn’t up and died on me.
As for today’s goal? I think I’ll just start with the basics. 1,557 words. When I reach that, I’ll evaluate how much time beyond three hours I’m going to aim for.
Progress will be in my next post. It’s easier than revisiting an already long-enough post and scrolling down every time I want to add a line. :)
I’ve had a couple of bad weeks of writing and I’m anxious to stop the downward slide. It’s 1:34 in the morning and I’ve spent another evening doing everything I can to avoid getting started with writing. It’ll continue until I decide to put a stop to it. So that’s what I’m doing. Tomorrow, I’ll write. 3 hours minimum. 1,557 words at least. And then a little more just to prove that I control my own actions. I don’t have to end the day disappointed in myself.
I like writing posts here while I write. I don’t know if it helps keep me focused in on writing or not, but I like it. So I’ve decided to end this latest experiment of mine early. I’d rather write less fiction than have to restrain the exuberance I feel and ignore the compulsion to talk about it. :D So—I’m back!
I’ve done pretty well with my other big writing experiment though. The non-negotiable 1,557 words a day is working for me. It helps that it’s a number I can look at and imagine myself completing in a little over an hour. Now, I don’t usually complete that many words in an hour, not by far, which makes the whole thing funny in a sad sort of way, because it exemplifies my problem with grandiose thinking. BUT, I’ve finally found a way to make that work for me, it seems, because 1,557 words a day feels so easy when I think about doing it, that I don’t find myself hampered by resistance at all.
It’s kind of an amazing feeling, really.
I’ve already told everyone who’ll listen to me not to ever let me set a huge goal for myself again. :D
One reason I think this is different than previous attempts? I usually say one thing but mean another. I don’t know that I’ve ever actually accepted that maybe this is the upper limit for me and that it’s okay. I don’t have to write more than this because I can make a good living (barring catastrophe) and my books might come slower, but consistency will get me there much faster than my usual patterns.
In fact, 1,557 words a day is actually more than 2x my current all time daily average of 618 words. See what all that inconsistency has gotten me, chasing after ever growing goals I never seem able to reach? I can double the number of novels I put out in a year just by writing a small number of words every day.
I’ve known this for a long time, but I think, now, finally, I’m ready to embrace it.
Now, to figure out how to kill perfectionism once and for all…
I finished up the last of my sessions. I had hoped to reached 3,000 words but I didn’t quite make it. I’m at 2,332 for the day. I might come back later and do some more writing, because I really want to end the day at 3,000 words!
But for now, I need a break. A massive break, because my brain is tired. :D
Eight sessions instead of twelve seems to be the way to go! Of course, I made up the total time difference by making the eight sessions thirty minutes long instead of twenty. But it has left me fewer opportunities for distraction and here it is 11:56 a.m. and I have only three sessions to go. :)
Session 1 = 302 words (604 wph)
Session 2 = 263 words (526 wph)
Session 3 = 270 words (540 wph)
Session 4 = 312 words (624 wph)
Session 5 = 315 words (630 wph)
Sessions are 30 minutes long. Goal is 375 words per session, 750 words per hour.
I’ve completed eight sessions now and although I’m pretty happy with the fact that I’m writing, I’m disappointed that my morning pace didn’t hold out when it came up against my story line uncertainty. I think that’s been a big deal on this particular story. I’m still very much not sure where it’s headed.
Session 4 = 36 words
Session 5 = 29 words
Session 6 = 199 words
Session 7 = 130 words
Session 8 = 84 words
Sessions were 20 minutes, goal was 250 words per session.
This put me at 2.667 hours of timed writing for the day. I need 1.333 hours more to reach 4 hours, my minimum goal.
For the rest of the evening, I’m switching to 30 minute sessions. I just keep running into the fact that I feel like I’m just getting on a roll when that timer dings, but doing 2 sessions back-to-back just hasn’t worked well.
Now, back to writing for me! I have a lot to do and it’s already 7:51 pm and I don’t want to be up late tonight. Here’s hoping I can pick up the pace again so those 1,645 words come quick.
