Slow and Steady Wins the Race

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

One cool thing about blogging for over ten years is that a lot of the posts form a sort of unexpected diary.  I was glancing over some older posts and came across this one from 2010.   My son and daughter would have been 13 and 9 when I wrote it.  I spoke of our bike ride on a nearby greenway and how we were biking so erratically (my daughter was still on a little kid bike) that a jogger kept passing us over and over again.  He was going slow and steady and despite our occasional bursts of speed,  kept overtaking us.

I made the observation that this was how my writing life worked.  I didn’t go fast enough to get burned out but I didn’t go slow enough to get overwhelmed with the length of the project.

When I’ve spoken in front of groups, I’m frequently asked how many books a year I write.  My answer is 3 1/2 (when I first started writing it was far fewer than that…the majority of my books have been written in the last 5 years).  They always think this sounds impressive until I tell them that my goal each day is 3 pages.  It’s funny how it sounds much less-impressive when you break it down.

I think the danger of writing a lot of books can be, depending on the writer, the burnout that can follow.  I’ve been burned out before, even writing at my pace, and it wasn’t fun.  I felt like I was just going through the motions.

One reason I enjoy this slower, steadier pace is because I’m a fan of breaking down everything from writing to promo to cleaning out a project into smaller tasks.  I stay motivated when I have a string of small successes every day and when I meet my smaller, reasonable goals.

There are a lot of writers that are meeting really impressive word count goals every day and are able to maintain it for years.  I can understand their reasoning: they know that they will likely make more money if they publish more books.  My income at this point is pretty steady…an amount that I can count on.  But it took me a long while to get here.

The important thing is to find your pace.  Only you know how much is going on in your life at one time.  Make sure that whatever goals you set for yourself are attainable and make you comfortable.  When I had a toddler in the house, my goal was 1 page a day (written during Elmo’s World on repeat).  Don’t let anyone think that you’re writing too fast or too slow.  And, if your circumstances change (you have more time or less time), then be sure to adjust your goals accordingly.

For more about setting writing goals,  see this post by Janice Hardy.

What is your natural writing pace like? What types of goals are you setting for this year?

A Slow and Steady Writing Pace Leads to Published Books:
Click To Tweet

Photo on Foter.com

The post Slow and Steady Wins the Race appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.