Let me start out by saying I’ve never finished NaNoWriMo. I’ve attempted it a good four or five times, too. I’ve never successfully gone a whole week making the daily word count—which in case you’re wondering, is 1667 words per day.

Recently, though, I’ve decided that my biggest goal for writing right now is to get through a first draft, remembering that it’s the second and third drafts that’ll make things pretty and nice. I mentioned this to my husband and said that the thing I had to do was set a word goal per day and stick to it. He asked me how many words I would write per day.

“Um… I don’t know.”

This was not the right answer to give him.

“I was thinking probably a thousand.”

He then challenged me to write two thousand words per day. I tried to explain to him that this would be impossible, and possibly make me cry.

But he asked me to try it… just try it.  I was unsure to say the least, but I agreed.

How is it going so far? Well I’m really only a couple of days into the challenge. Two thousand words, every Monday through Friday, at least until my first draft is done. I started last Wednesday. My first day it took me almost twelve hours, but I hit my goal. The next day I started a little earlier, but it still took me just about all day. Still, I had a very good idea of where my story was going—including a checklist of scenes I needed to write.

Friday I went on a quilt run with my mom. (Well, we dragged the husband along—you know, for extra goodies). A whole day of writing was gone. Saturday was part of the quilt run too. (If you don’t know what a quilt run is, google it. Then imagine it full of crazy old ladies.)

So… now I was 2000 words behind. I was worried this would throw off my momentum, and it’d be a challenge to get started again on Monday—today. Well, it was a challenge to get started today, but not really because I couldn’t find momentum—I just couldn’t find a chance to sit down at first.

I’m happy to say that when I did get to the sitting down, with some persistence I got even more written in a shorter time than I had the other two days—I wrote 3024 words today, and broke 48K in my WIP. This isn’t the most I’ve written of an original piece of fiction, but it is by far the most consecutive writing of an original piece I’ve done. I have one at 56K, but it’s all scattered in scenes, with big gaping holes in between. With the WIP I’m working on now, 95% of it was written consecutively.

Basically, I’m feeling good today. I even made up a good amount of the 2000 words I missed on Friday, so that I’m only a little over 600 words behind now, and now 600 words seems like a piece of cake. Even 2000 words doesn’t seem like a whole lot. After all, I can write 500 words in an hour, if I’m in the right zone. 2000 only takes four of those. That’s totally doable.

Well, right now, when I don’t have a job. I’m sure that has something to do with it. But at the same time, that’s exactly why I need to keep the fire burning.

So whatever your goal is, even if it scares you a little, believe in it. You’re capable. And if you need some support or a cheering section, hit me up. I’m good at that. 😉