So April went pretty well, with me getting back into the pace of regular writing. The first week of May… well, I wrote 6800 words or so, which is not shabby at all, and yet falls short of the 7500 I was aiming for. 700 words, that’s not much, right? Except that these things are hard to catch up on and then you get left behind, and…

Looking back on the week I can see my errors. I did great for several days, not only knocking off the 1500 word target comfortably, but also burning through to do lists, which incorporate necessary tasks, housework, exercise, Pendlerook business, other writing/editing, and those things I’ve been putting off for weeks or months. I’ve discovered a few rules of thumb, like that if I don’t factor in exercise I don’t exercise, and that if I want to actually complete a day’s to do list, it has to be a) realistic and b) not have more than 10 items on it.

Things didn’t get problematic until Thursday, a day when I only have about 3 hours at home, and those hours with a baby, which means one naptime. Trying to pack a whole 10 item to do list into that day was a mistake. Deliberately cutting short the amount of writing I had to do that day, to make it up on my much friendlier Friday (in which I have five hours at home before the school pick up, with baby, and at least two naps) would have been fine if I didn’t also have to do items for Friday. 2000 word Fridays are possible if there is nothing else to get done. I was aiming for 2500… plus STUFF.

Btw in case it’s not obvious, ‘nap’ as a unit of measurement is roughly an hour to an hour & a half when the baby (not ME) is napping and I have time to do things without my attention having to be shared.

So yes, yesterday I struggled to get any wordcount. I did manage to get lots of other things done, but every time I returned to Scrivener, it was like pulling teeth. I ended up falling way short of my goal, which left me feeling crappy and unachievy.

Worse than that, the book was starting to feel empty and difficult. I realised that I had probably pegged my wordcount targets too high for the week (and thus the month) – I was producing words faster than my brain could produce story, which is pretty much the equivalent of trying to drive a car without petrol. It was a bit of a shock, as usually producing story is as natural as breathing to me, but I had underestimated how tricky this book is. I’m in the second half of a Book 3 which has so much to get done, so many things to achieve, and frankly I need to spend more time thinking about it and less time typing. For a bit, anyway.

Part of me feels very self-conscious about being so hung up on wordcount. if I’m an artist it should be about the art, right? Not just numbers and quotas? Which is of course true.

I’d love to be one of those writers who can write without being at the mercy of wordcount – who can just work and enjoy the book and let it unfurl like a flower. But I’m not. I need targets and small achievable goals, and the reward buzz of hitting my mark every time. More importantly, I am very aware of my limitations. I have so many other responsibilities and drains on my time, that pulling out an all nighter or an all weekender at the end of a deadline period is just not an option. I have a baby to feed, and a 5 year old whose feelings get hurt when I go all cranky and weird for no good reason. I have a partner who has put a lot of trust in me being able to balance family and work.

I need my weekends.

So yes, I do get rather mechanical in my planning and keeping track of what and how much I write. But I need to remember that the easiest way to produce fast, useful wordcount is to actually think beforehand about what to write. I need to do more of that. So I have dug out the old fashioned notebook and told myself I’m not allowed back into my novel doc until I have planned out 10 scenes.

I’ll give the 1500 words a day thing one more go next week, and if it doesn’t work out, I’m going to have to seriously revise how long it’s going to take to get this first draft written. Sigh. If only books were quantifiable. Whose idea was it that they should all be entirely different in the effort required to produce them? Anyone might think they had individual needs or something. Grumble grumble.

Tags: mama writer, saturnalia, thinkinglikeawriter, wordcount, writing