I write sporadically, in occasional bursts and drips. And I hope that that sentence will quickly become false. :)
See, to really be a writer, you have to write regularly. You have to. That’s how you get good, by putting in the hours and making writing as much a part of your life as brushing your teeth. (Assuming you do, in fact, brush your teeth.) (No, I don’t want to know.) Gladwell gives the 10,000-hour number in Outliers, and I’m pretty sure he’s right. There’s magic in habits. (Must. Resist. Nun. Joke.)
Setting a goal merely to write every single day is great and noble and all that, but the organizational freak inside me wants to set a more specific goal, either in words or in hours. And so I have. Ever since that NaNoWriMo day when I blistered out 10,000 words in a single day (yes, you read that right), and 5,000 the next, I’ve had this uncanny belief in my ability to pump verbiage out onto the page at an alarming rate.
But wait, what about that thing called real life? Those 10k/5k days were empty holidays and Saturdays, but ordinarily I don’t have eight hours a day to write. At first, a thousand words a day seemed like a good goal, so I tried doing that. I lasted all of, oh, three days. After that came a long line of starving zero days with nary a word to my name. (Blogging and twittering don’t count towards the goal, by the way.) (And yes, on those days when I didn’t reach my goal, I realize I should’ve just doodled a picture and called it even. :P)
Brief tangent that’s not really a tangent: People like Trollope are the reason I keep thinking I need to be sizzling out thousands and thousands of words a day, because of course I need to have 80+ novels published by the time I die…right? Bzzt. It’s not about the numbers. And while prolific can be good, and writing that much does give you plenty of practice to get you to your literary Carnegie Hall, it’s silly to worry about goals like that when you’re still trying to finish your second novel. And by “you” I mean “me.”
So, my new goal is 500 words a day. It’s smallish (two pages) and almost reddens my cheeks with underachievement, but I’m coming to terms with the cold reality that writing is not yet high enough of a priority in my life that I can do more than 500 words a day consistently. (And I’d rather write a few words every day than a lot every once in a while.) It shames me to say that. I mean it: I’m cringing over here. I am a writer, so why do I keep letting myself get distracted with all these other projects? Tsk, tsk, Ben. Anyway, that will change someday (hopefully soon), but in the meantime, here’s to 500 words a day and all the books that will come out of it.
I still feel like a pansy. But at least I’ll be a producing pansy!
Comments
But at least I’ll be a producing pansy!
Do I sense a new profile description for your Twitter account? :-P
Check this out! http://www.inkygirl.com/500-words-a-day-challenge/ Hope that encourages you. 500 words is a great goal. I tried 1,000 and I could never do it but 500 is very doable and I was able to keep it up for a few weeks before I broke it at all. Good luck!
I vote this from that “500 words a day challenge” site:
What type of writing counts toward the challenge?
Again, this is up to you to decide. Some writers may just want to count words written for a first draft of a novel. Others may want to include how many words they’ve revised. Still others may count ANY words they’ve written, including blogs, Twitter, non-fiction, outlining, poetry and other writing. As Chris Brogan says, writing begets writing.
Connor: All I can say is “:P”
Heather: Nice — thanks! I’m managing 500 pretty well so far. (I actually pumped out 2700 words on Saturday and 2600 last night, but that was on a play — it’s easier for me to write plays than it is to write fiction. Or at least it’s easier to write massive word counts that way. :))
Alyssa: Oh, I do think that blogging and Twittering and the like count as writing — it’s just that I already do them and have no problem doing them, whereas I have to remind myself to write fiction (because it’s harder). And so I’m reserving the daily word count goal just for fiction and plays and the stuff that’s harder for me to write (where there’s a lot of resistance). Hopefully that makes some kind of sense. :)
Throw in your two cents