WIP Challenge Check-in, Day 1 -- Wednesday

[linaewen]

Greetings on Wednesday!  Sorry about missing yesterday, it was one of of my usual crazy Tuesdays!

It's a new writing month, and an opportunity for  fresh start.  How are you making use of your time today for writing?

• I thought about my fic once or twice
• I wrote
• I did some planning and/or research
• I edited
• I've sent my fic off to my beta
• I posted today!
• I'm taking a break
• I did something else that I'll talk about in a comment

For Discussion:  A statement by Dorothea Brande, author of Becoming A Writer, caught my attention recently.  She says that if you cannot commit to turning up at the page, every day, even if for ten minutes, then your commitment to failure is stronger than your commitment to being a writer.  That's a strong statement, but it spoke to me where I'm at right now.

My question for discussion is this -- are you able to set goals for daily writing times like this?  Is it helpful to you?  When the unavoidable happens and you simply cannot spend time with your writing, how hard is it for you to get back on track?

Comments

[linaewen]

My day is just beginning, but I have been doing some thinking about my fic. That's a start!

I have been letting other things rule my time and have not established a routine for writing daily, even for just a short time. I really feel like I am off track now, and it gets harder and harder to make time for writing because I am out the loop so to speak. For me, this statement about being committed to failure seems accurate. With this new challenge month starting, I am setting a new goal for myself of writing every day for at least 15 minutes. I should be able to do that much! We'll see if it helps me get back in a writing routine.

[rainne]

I thought about fic. And then I whimpered at the last 12 pages of this article that's due next Wednesday and wished I could write fic.

[lullabymoon]

I didn't have a lot of brainspace to write today but I managed 140 words (the very first of the fic!) which was enough to tell me that the inspiration I had about reworking the prologue was the right idea.

Funnily enough, I just borrowed that book today. :) I was managing to set daily goals of at least 5 minutes of something writing related every day but then the unavoidable happened and I struggled to get back on track. Now I often manage a couple of days at at time, but that is one of the things I plan to work on this month.

[lilly_c]

I finished up the last of my editing today and I'm going to let that breathe for a day or so then post the remaining chapters of my fic during the early part of next week.

I'm not too keen on setting times to get some writing done because I tend to panic about working against the clock but I have found setting word count targets to be useful. I usually, RL depending, set a target of between 500 - 3000 words per week and that way I'm not too disheartend when there aren't as many words as I'd like.