To follow up on Cynthia's post the other day, I've decided to experiment with setting a daily word count goal for myself in order to keep myself focused and moving ahead with my novel, despite all of the daily distractions in my life.
My first thought was to try for 1500 words a day, but after trying that on day one (yesterday) and only managing 861, I've decided that perhaps 1500 is too lofty a goal. So, my adapted plan is to get 800-1000 words down every day - weekends included. I'm going to try this for the next week and see how it works for me.
The words may be painful to read or they may flow beautifully but either way there will be at least 800 words there that weren't there yesterday.
Wish me luck!
Sara
Good luck, Sara!
ReplyDeleteI agree that when setting goals, we must be realistic. A double-spaced page from the computer contains approximately 250 words, so 1500 words would be 6 pages a day. That's pretty ambitious for writers with jobs and careers, unless you rise early and go to bed late.
Stephen King writes ten pages a day, but that's his profession. If you find yourself failing to achieve your goal, lower the wordcount to 2 or three pages a day.
We all know that if we leave writing to another day, the days continue to pass while we do everything but write. Start small and work yourself up your goal. Some chapters/scenes will be easier than others and, instead of stopping or struggling over them, move on to another part of the novel.
Just keep writing!
Cynthia