1,000 Words a Day

Writing goals. Setting them, keeping them.

I've been struggling to set the right writing goals for years.

Should I do a page a day? Or how about two?

No, maybe a paragraph a day. Or would word count work better?

So, maybe, 1500 words a day. Or a thousand? Stephen King is said to write 1,500 words every day except his birthday, Fourth of July and Christmas Day.

Now, I know for a fact that, even with having to work full-time, I can get at least a 1,000 words done a day. I can even push that to 1,500. And on the weekends, for example during NaNoWriMo, I can do 3,000 to even 7,000 words in a day!

So I know I can do it.

But, as always, it's the doing. In all the hurly-burly and hustle-bustle of life in the 21st century, those words you mean to write that day never really manifest.

But, dagnabit, it can be done. Even with a full-time job or whatever responsiblities one is saddled with we all know that it can be done!

Then why, gosh-darn it, is it so gosh-darn hard!

I grind my teeth everytime I go a day without writing. I know for a fact, Jack, that the days I write I'm less stressed than the days I don't. Yet I can go days, even weeks without writing.

Am I just lazy? Well, no. I mean, I've written loads of words. I used to write fanfic back in the day and I'd write pages of that stuff.

Is it fear? Fear of what? Looking like an idiot? Writing caca? Or maybe it's the fear one feels if suddenly faced with your heart's desire.

Maybe it's just a huge, noisy carnival of fears.

1,000 words a day.

Now, let's think about this. Write 1,000 words a day and in a year you'd have.....ta da!....365,000 words.

That's four 80,000 word novels.

Three 100,000 word novels.

Eighteen 20,000 word novellas.

Forty-eight 7,500 word short stories!!

Adds up, doesn't it?

Maybe I should start a 1,000 Word a Day Club or something. Everybody commits to writing 1,000 words a day.

You'd think anyone would join?

How about you? *grin*