Day 31 Of March And The 1st Of April

Yesterday was the very last day of March. It was the culmination of a pretty awesome undertaking for me. This year has been, as I said in a podcast earlier, the year of Big Anklevich. It's not the year that everything happens for me. I don't think that's what it's going to be. But it is going to be the year where I turn the course of my life from the aimless meanderings that it has been so far to the straight and purposeful direction that I have always wanted it to go in but never had the dedication to do so.

In February, I pledged to write 500 words every day. I'm sure that plenty of people scoffed at that, but I meant it, and, surprise, surprise, I did what it took to make that actually happen. Then, to avoid the let downs that I've had in the past, where my writing progress peters out and drops back to nothing, I pledged to take that 500 word goal from February and double it. In March, I had to write 1,000 words every day. Truthfully, even I thought that might not be possible. It would be quite a stretch. I've never written at that kind of level ever. But I was going to give it a shot.

The first few days were difficult, but an interesting thing happened. As I saw that I could do it, even if it was hard, then I grew more confident. Soon, it wasn't as hard as it was before. After a while, writing 1,000 words was about as easy for me as writing 500 words had been. Some days were worse than others, but I'm here to tell you that last night, I wrote1,014 words, completing a full month of thirty-one days writing 1,000 words each and every day.

I wrote 36,809 words in the month. I have also written for 59 straight days. In the space of two months, I've written 57,116 words. Thus sayeth my chart anyway:

So, now it's April. What do I do to top it? Do I need to go to 1,500 words? Actually, no, I don't think I'm going to do that. I'm sure not going to try avoiding hitting the 1,500 mark or anything, but that's not going to be my goal. Instead, I'm putting a deadline on my writing.

I've been having an issue with staying up too late at night to get my words written. Often, I don't get my 1,000 words in before 2:00 AM, then I have to be up at 6:30 AM to get my kids up and ready for school. Lots of Diet Mountain Dew or coffee have been the only things that have kept me alive for this past month. Now, I love coffee and Mountain Dew...though not together...but it's just not healthy to do this to myself. I need some better habits. And that is what this whole process is about--establishing habits.

So, this month, the mark will remain at 1,000 words, but now, I have to have them all written by 11:00 PM, no later. So, you might notice that this post is publishing after 11:00 PM on April 1st. So, how'd the first day go? Well, I failed miserably. I didn't even write at all.

The end.









Nah, I'm just kidding. April fools, everybody! Here's my new chart:

Yeah, I got 1,052 words in before 11:00 PM hit. Now, it wasn't an easy thing, mind you. I didn't get started until 10:00 PM, and I got a little lost in the weeds when I was trying to find out a few things about horses on the internet to make sure what I was writing made sense. Eventually, I checked my word count at 10:55 PM, and found that I was still only at 964. I had five minutes to get in about forty words. I could do it, right?

Of course I could. As you can see, I got in about one hundred in that time, so I was fine. But I don't want to push it that close any more. Hopefully tomorrow will be even better. And the next day even better. I'd really like to get to the point that I get my words in the morning before I even leave for work, maybe sitting down to write them right after waking up my kids at 6:30 AM. Of course that will require making this before 11:00 PM thing a reality for sure. It's hard to stay up and do anything at 6:30 AM if you didn't go to be until 2:00 AM after all.

So, here's to another great month.

Oh! I almost forgot. I have one further goal for April. In March, I wrote 36,809 words on the month. That's 5,809 words above and beyond the required 31,000 that I had to get to achieve the goal every day. Well, I'm not going to be satisfied with that in April. My goal for the month is going to be 40,000 words. It's only about 3,000 more than what I got in March, but with one less day to do it. I think it's definitely doable, and I'm going to do it. If I manage, then that means that in just a few short months, I went from 20,000 words in a month to 40,000. That seems like significant progress. After I kick all those goals asses, then I'll think about possibly upping the count again.

Jeez, this post is almost 1,000 words. Maybe I should count this for tomorrow.