I wrote over 3000 words yesterday. IN ONE DAY. I don’t love everything I wrote, but some of it was pretty darn good. And, if I hadn’t taken so long with writer’s block, I would have written more because it took me a good two hours of staring at the screen to figure out that I just needed to start in another place. Sheesh.

Going into the weekend I’m stoked. Not just because of my word count, although I’m happy I made it over 10K in spite of all the issues this week, but because of what I’m learning. Such as:

1. I do better if I break up my writing. About 800 words in the morning before the kids get up, a good hour of writing in the afternoon, and then finish my goal at night. That way I’m not loosing my house or my children to my work. It’s not what Dave Wolverton told us to do, but it’s working with the kid’s schooling and my church obligations in the evenings. You do what works for the situation you’re in. And I love Dave – if you don’t get his Kick in the Pants emails, you’re really missing out.

2. I’m capable! Who knew? All this time I had taken the advice not to move on until the first few pages were PERFECT and had stumped my growth! Not that I haven’t learned in the past few years or grown, but there is a difference in the way you feel when you’re enjoying writing verses being frustrated because it never turns out perfect. Much easier and productive to get in the zone.

3. I don’t have delusions of grandeur. I know for a fact that I’m writing very sloppy work right now. I’ve got adverbs all over the place. My husband asked me, “Can I read some of it when I got home?” and I cringed. I said, “Let me do some editing first.” Some meaning A LOT.

4. Work ethic. Habit. Goal setting. Whatever you want to call it, it’s working for me. I’ve never set a goal of word count or any such thing before. My biggest goals have been to have enough manuscript written well enough not to get laughed out of a writing conference. I haven’t missed a goal yet. 😉 But… I can see I benefit from deadlines.

5.  Last,  I learned that anything can be used as an excuse.  Likewise, anything can be used as a reason.  I haven’t blogged about the week because it was a REALLY hard week on the stress factor machine.  It hasn’t been easy, and I fell asleep twice with the laptop on my chest while I was still writing, but I found because I was loving it so much, I didn’t want to quit when I woke up.  Decide what you want, fall in love, and bulldog it.  Don’t let go.  If you do, expect to be disappointed.

5 Days, 5 Lessons.  Whew.

And today is Day 6!  Ready?  Set?  Write!

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