Picking Up the Pace
Well, I think this novel has legs—which is kinda surprising to me. I’m still writing the opening act, so I’m a long way off from the second act doldrums that normally hit me in the middle of a novel. But I’m reasonably confident I’m going to see this one through—I already have plans for the finished product. And, I’m really starting to enjoy writing it.
Writing is a muscle. The more you use it, the easier it is. Conversely, if you let it atrophy, when you come back to it, it can take some time to warm up. I had a ridiculously low goal of 100 words a day between now and the end of the year to put the word count at 8100 words to get warmed up to writing again. Well, as of this post I’m at 11k and averaging three times that amount on a much more consistent schedule.
So, I’m kicking my writing goals up a notch to the next level. New target is 10k written in December (323 words a day), with an eye to increase that for January. I want to wait to get the first act done to then be able to estimate the novel length before settling on a monthly target to complete it in a reasonable amount of time. And even though it’s too early to tell, I’m estimating it’ll be about 80-100k and it’ll take through the end of August 2019 to complete the zero draft. I generally like to stop and tidy things up a bit (edit) after I complete major sections, so that timeline accounts for me cycling back a couple times.
Oh! Another thing I’ve fallen in love with is the privacy screen for my laptop. I bought it to be able to work on a plane without feeling like the person sitting next to me was reading and judging my crappy zero-draft prose (no one has ever done that, but it’s still an inhibiting feeling). Anyway, the screen cuts down the blue light, and I had no idea how much it tired my eyes out. It’s a completely different feeling writing with it on. I use it around the house now all the time. I was impressed how much I was able to tell a difference right away.