One word a day! I could do that. That doesn’t even make sense does it? If I set a goal to write one word a day, imagine how long it would take to finish writing a book. I feel as though I am stuck in a place not far from that idea with ‘What Line’. It’s been slow going. You can read this blog post by Richard Ridley that has inspired me to think about the one word concept. I don’t think I have gone completely cuckoo!
Some authors – most authors – set a daily word count goal. It is far from a one word a day goal. That count is more like 1500 – 3000 words or more a day. That would really get the ball rolling for sure.
Think of the pressure you are under with that higher count. Take for instance, there is the emergency run to the vet after your dog ate the last ten pages of your novel. The hot water heater didn’t only spring a leak, it flooded your basement. Sick kids. Sick you. Life happens and there is not a thing we can do to stop it. When it happens there goes that unrealistic goal of your word count. It’s shot to hell in a hand basket. And since we all don’t like to fail, sometimes we don’t even try.
Placing your word count goal at one word per day is much more realistic. You open your laptop to your novel. Refresh your mind by rereading the last chapter you wrote. Open up a fresh blank page and start typing. Type that one word. You pretty much have to type more than one word to finish a sentence and then that sentence runs into another and then a paragraph forms. A few more paragraphs, another page or two and look at that. You not only surpassed your word count of one word – you wrote a whole new chapter!
So folks, I’m changing my word count goal to one word per day. How about you? I’ve already typed almost four hundred words just by writing this post. Counting the deletions and retypes and I have! Now I have to go get that one word typed into ‘What Line’.
Happy goal setting!