January Check-In
How did you do for your January Writing Streak? One of the benefits of tracking your progress is that you can look back and see where you’ve been. Another is that you can adjust your goals as needed.
One of my running friends told me once, “Running is a head game.” I’m beginning to understand it now. It’s about staying motivated. It’s about telling yourself you can do it, because when you start telling yourself that you can’t, that’s when you start to lose the game. I think writing is the same in many ways.
When I began my January Writing Streak, I planned to only count new and revised fiction words. As the month progressed, I decided to give myself permission to include more words in my count. Now, I’m counting my Detox words, my blogging words, edited words, and pre-writing words. These words buoy me, motivate me, keep me from giving up.
Detox: 29,192
Blogging: 6,547
Fiction: 5,787
Counting only fiction words, I’d have 5,787 words this month. But my Detox words clear my brain out and make room for creativity. And my blogging words, while they aren’t fiction, are still an expression of my creativity. Giving myself permission to recognize these words as part of my creativity has freed up that creativity. Instead of berating myself for not writing enough, I can look at this month and feel good about having put 35,939 more words toward my creativity. Combined with my 5,787 fiction words, that’s 41,526 words — nearly a NaNoWriMo-worthy word count!
Your Turn
How did you do for January? Is it time to reevaluate your goals? Do you need to give yourself permission to track words you hadn’t been last month?
I did pretty good – having a “thing” going on helped me remember to play with my various project goodies. I don’t know how it will do long term, but definitely as a one-shot it helps! At least for me.