The Hard Way

I wanted to write a novel in a hundred days.

I started in December, oh about sixty days ago.

So, I am 60% through the novel?

Um, no.

I'm not even a quarter of the way through the novel yet.

But I have learned something.

I can't change my whole writing technique overnight. I really thought with a good helping of determination, and cheering on from my friends, I could just sit down and write 1000 words a day. No problem. Guess what? I can't. At least not consistently.

It's tempting to beat myself up about this. Tell myself how lazy and horrible I must be. But that's not helpful. Besides, it has nothing to do with laziness. It has to do with changing ingrained habits and learning to turn off (or at least turn down) the inner editor. It's not as easy as I thought.

Instead I have adjusted my goals to allow time for change. For now, I just want to write a little more each week than I did the week before. For January, this worked pretty well. I went from 7.5 pages the first week to 10.5 pages, to 13 pages, to 19 pages. Not bad.

Last week totally kicked me in the teeth with a rotten illness, but I still managed 11 pages. Considering how bad I felt, I counted it as a victory.

This week? Well, I'm ready to take it on!

And you know something? I'm still going to have this novel finished way faster than I've ever finished before, even if it's not as fast as I'd hoped.