I keep a daily word tally on my calendar.
When I write more than 250 words each day for my novel, I reward myself with stickers, that say things like: Super Star, Nice Job, Good work, etc. It’s something I started last month so I can watch myself progress.
For August, I set a target to write 300 words per day for five days of each week. I achieved more than that most days and am happy to say I wrote a total of 8788 words surpassing August’s word-count goal by 2788 words. Yay me!
September – well, that’s a whole different story.
The word count for this month so far is not as good as August. In fact, I have three stickers so far. I looked at my calendar this morning and was a little disappointed.
But then, I remembered – even though I had not written many words for my novel, I did write words. I remembered, I wrote a short story (770-words) called The Tempest. It was a windy night the night before and these words came to me as I lay there trying to sleep. So, as you do, I grabbed my phone and wrote the story in the notes section. The following morning, I relayed all those words onto my laptop, edited it, and put it aside, until I decide what to do with it.
I also remembered, I wrote a 500-word (or close enough) short story for the Australian Writers Centre‘s monthly Furious Fiction competition, and submitted it. I wrote a 100 word blurb (that was the limit) which I submitted in another competition. I wrote a post for my own blog titled The Boat Shed, check it out.
And, a few days ago, I wrote an article for a Blog, Suzs Space about The Penrith Museum of Printing – 750 words. Also, I used only the good words (about 450 of them) for this current post. Not too shabby.
Today I added stickers to my calendar as reward for doing all those other words, and it looks a little happier.
An update – I submitted The Tempest to an online publication but haven’t heard if it’s been accepted for publication as yet. The 100-word blurb competition won’t be announced until October sometime. I will keep you updated as I hear news. Edit: I received my first rejection letter (email). Onwards and upwards.
For September, even though I may not have progressed my novel’s word count further than I had hoped this month, I feel pleased with myself that I still wrote some words. All words are good words and as long as you write something, you are headed in the write direction. (See what I did there?)
Do you ever feel like you’re not achieving what you set out to do?
Publishing news
I have news regarding a short story I titled Ooops! and submitted in August to an online publication – I’m published! It’s a fun read, I hope you enjoy it.