Writing Update For Monday

I think I might need to work on first principles with this writing thing. I need to get my priorities straight. I did write today, but I barely met my minimum goal...well, let me take that back. My minimum goal is that I write something, anything, each day. So, by writing, I met my minimum goal. But what I meant was that I barely got 500 words.

I just finished them. I wrote them so late that I was considering giving up and quitting with less than 500. While that wouldn't be the end of the world, it's not the kind of thing I'm trying to foster. I want to be expanding my words, not letting them get smaller.

I read a book a while ago called 5,000 Words Per Hour by Chris Fox.

And one of his principles to being a successful writer was to eat that frog. Mark Twain said that if eating a frog is the toughest thing you had to do every day, then you should start your day with that, or the frog will croak at you in your head all day long. So, the idea is that you should do the toughest...or in this case, most important...thing first, and then you can get to the other things when and if you get to them.

That's what I did today. I did things that didn't have to be done right away, things that didn't have to be done every day, things that could be done tomorrow or next week or even not at all, but they were more sexy to me at the time, so they're what I devoted my time to. Then, waaaaaaay a the end of the day, I finally thought, I better get writing or I'm going to blow it.

Tomorrow, I need to see if I can reverse the order of those things. Get the words written first, do the other stuff after.

Well, here's my meter for the month:

14459 / 15000 (96.39%)

I really ought to have surpassed 100% today, but instead, I didn't eat the frog. Tomorrow, I'll hit it, though. That's pretty exciting, isn't it?

My average is coming down each time that I do a crappy day where I barely get 500 words. I gotta quit it. I was hoping to get my average all the way up to 750, but that's never happening this way.

Here's the year-to-date meter.

16831 / 304475 (5.53%)

Coming along slowly. I guess that's how you eat an elephant.

Maybe I should read that 5,000 Words Per Hour book again and see if I can't reexamine my process to improve my speed. Even 5,000 words a day would be great. If I was doing that much, I'd be at my goal in two months. I'd be halfway there already. I guess I have homework.