Pushing Myself

I’m an extremely consistent writer… but not necessarily a fast one. Given my work schedule, I don’t have a vast, untamed expanse of time to write every day, so I have to be efficient with the time I have. On the other hand, since I don’t have any deadlines for my writing other than what I impose on myself, I have the luxury of taking my time on getting any particular book done.

That doesn’t mean I don’t impose deadlines on myself. I set word count goals, and try hard to give my agent a pretty good idea when she can expect a completed draft of whatever I’m working on next.

In 2011, I participated in NaNoWrimo, and hit the 50,000 word mark in a month for what became TAIGA. That averaged out to about 1666 words a day, which isn’t a lot, but it’s at the top end of what I do during a work/weekday (although I average more than that on the weekends). Right now, I’ve gotten through the first third of my WIP, and if I keep to my normal pace (and my expected page count for this book), I’d expect to have a full draft done around February.

However, I’m going to push myself to get this draft done by the end of November, shaving about 2 months of work off my regular routine.

Why? Just to see if I can do it. I don’t know if it’ll make my first draft any better or worse (and although my first drafts are always very complete, I love re-writing more than writing), but I like the idea of forcing myself to write more, better, faster. There’s another reason, and that’s that I love writing – I have more books in my head than I can ever get down, but if I push myself a bit, maybe I can squeeze one or two or three more out over my “writing career” than I otherwise would.

We’ll see!