Making & Meeting Goals

I joined the ACFW Novel Track this month. I started a new manuscript a few days before October 1 and thought this would be a great motivation to get a lot of words down on paper...er, screen. My typical history of productivity is inconsistent. I go a few weeks with tons of writing and then I'm dry for a month or more (like way more). It's very hard for me to push through exhaustion, lack of inspiration, the muddle in the middle.

I'm kind of a hybrid of a seat-of-the-pants (SOTP) writer and plotter...so I have a few areas of the book with some great plot threads that excite me. And, where I'm at today, seriously, this is bad writing. It's part lack of research and part just not sure what should come next. A jump in time? A more detailed scene about the building of a friendship?

The good thing is that I'm pushing through it. Am I tired. OH YEAH I AM. But at night when I go to sleep, even if it's 1 a.m., I know that I wrote as much as I could that day. I sleep soundly. I hate going to bed knowing that if I'd pushed through the tiredness just a bit I would've gotten 1/2 a scene down...or even a whole one. Or even 500 words. Anything that moves forward. One day all I wrote before falling asleep at my lappy was 127 words. (sigh)

AND...I love a good bubble bath with a book (I'm reading Tricia Goyer's Beside Still Waters right now...very good, by the way) and that seems a lot more fun than writing almost any night. But I close my eyes when I walk by my big ole nice tub. {sigh} I will persevere! I'm determined!

I have a goal word count for this month...and I'm staying fairly on track. The first week I exceeded my weekly goal so that really helped. I know I need to get the overall word count to around 90k, which seems daunting, but it's just a word at a time.

In the vain of Dory, my favorite cartoon fish, "Just keep writing, just keep writing, just keep writing, writing, writing." Thanks, Dory, I think I will!

YOUR TURN: Are you good at setting goals? Did you set a goal for this month? This year? The year's almost over...keep up your motivation & productivity...and if you have any extra...please cyber-send it my way!

Cheers,
Elizabeth

PS: I just met my goal!!!!! While the words I wrote this month will need lots of editing & polishing...getting them down is the first step. I'm very excited! Now...what's my goal for next month?