I know I said I was done with schedules. I was wrong. I feel a burning desire to give this another try as I start into the new year so instead of fighting the urge, I gave in.
I have a reason for this. I’ve decided that since I have so much trouble with not getting distracted once I start taking breaks that I should try lumping my writing into one big block of time. For that to work, I pretty much have to have a schedule. Without one, I don’t see any way to create that big block of time.
So starting tomorrow, I’m going to give this a test run.
As soon as I finish breakfast, I’m going to sit down and start writing in 45 minute blocks and write straight through for 5 hours (the breaks at 45 minutes are simply to make sure I get up and stretch my legs, nothing more). That should give me six 45 minute blocks and about 30 minutes for breaks. If I take short breaks the way I plan, I’ll be finished writing by lunch and if I don’t… I’ll probably put off lunch until I get that last session done.
My goal for each of these 45 minute sessions is 500 words. That’s a bit faster than my average pace, but just enough to stretch me a bit. And despite the math that says I could reach 3,000 words a day with this schedule, my goal is still to average 2,000 a day, which means I’m building in some extra words so slow days won’t be as likely to throw me off my average or demoralize me.
Demoralizing is bad. Extra words are good. :)