Writing Goals

This month, I decided to participate in a challenge that my friend gave everyone, to write at least a hundred words every day. It's not that I wasn't writing already, but I was doing it in infrequent sprints, so I wanted to get back in the habit of making sure I write every single day, so I took on the challenge.

At first, I panicked because I got a horrible migraine on the first of this month and couldn't write a word for two days (or even have the light on without wincing), but then after I recovered, I've successfully written at least a hundred words every day. (So if you already messed up your New Years goals like I did immediately that doesn't mean you can't start again now! Go for it!) Most days I write much more than one hundred, about a thousand words or so, but its good for the spirit. The goal I have to meet every day is so small that I feel accomplished pretty quickly and don't feel as much pressure. Any words I write beyond the first one hundred are basically bonus words that I wrote that day. It's a psychological trip, where instead of beating yourself up because you wanted to write five thousand words and failed to do so, you are patting yourself on the back and getting more excited about writing.

I think my writing spirit was a bit crushed lately.

Although I am not writing at super speed with a super high word count right now, I am writing more quickly than I was writing before (and with more excitement about the whole thing!)

Also, I've been working on finishing two books at once. Yes, that is twice the work, but I feel like somehow it is actually ten times the work. I think in the future, I should work on publishing just one book at a time. It's just that I wanted to make the first book free and the second book concludes the first book, so I thought it would be better to publish them both at once. But then my books come out so slowly and I'd rather get more of my books out quickly.

I say this now, but I actually have a trilogy (that I've already written the first draft of the first book for) that I don't feel comfortable publishing until I am done with all three. So we will see what I actually wind up doing in the future.

I've also been spending more time away from social media. I'd still like to keep logging onto it. I learn a lot from talking to other authors from it. But I've also been getting more writing done without it, so I'm kind of conflicted there.

Anyway, how are all of you? What are your writing goals for this upcoming year?