Another day, another 2000 words

My ‘ learn to do projects in chunks’ plan is coming along swimmingly. I have written at least 2000 words* every day since November started, even on that day that felt like I was constructing each one individually.

I really like the feeling of writing this much, and I like having a daily goal. Sure, it’s only been six days but it feels like something I want to keep doing. I can’t imagine how much I would get written if I had a 2000 word goal daily, even just on weekdays after this. Except for that one day, it hasn’t been hard to do. I think that I could probably build up to more over time.

Clearly, I’m jumping the gun here, but I am enjoying this process. And I can remember that after the three or four large projects I’ve done in the past year, the writing sprint has left me wanting to write more, not less, but since I had worked in a sprint, I had ignored other things and was forced to take a break. The break broke my writing habit and it took until the next pressure induced sprint for me to start churning out the words again.

Considering that I am making this month about the process instead of the results, I think that the end of November could find me with a well entrenched habit of working on my projects in a regular fashion. That would make me a very happy dame, since creating structure and consistency was my main goal for this year. I’ve spent a lot of time in 2011 finding out different ways to deal with my obstacles to that goal, and NaNoWriMo may be the catalyst to push me past the last one.

I’m also hoping that November ends with me having an entrenched habit of exercising early in the morning. Getting up to do yoga on Saturday was actually easy and today I chose to stay in bed longer but I woke knowing that yoga had to happen before I went on with my day.  It was an interesting feeling to say the least, this inner force driving me towards my mat. It felt good for yoga to be part of my daily unmissable tasks, like eating or brushing my teeth.

BEWARE: TANGENT!

To step back to yesterday’s post. I don’t think I was clear enough on how I handled the fear. I think it was less of swallowing my fear than of accepting it as part of the process. Once again, I had to accept what I could not change, and I did that by focusing on the part I had control over – the process. Accepting that resistance and fear are part of the activities I choose to participate in is definitely key for me to move forward.**

WARNING: SUDDEN END OF TANGENT (ALSO: UNWARRANTED SHOUTING)

 

*Of my novel. That total doesn’t include my daily blog entries, or the freelance writing I’ve done.

**I apologize to those that find/found that painfully obvious and were just waiting for me to catch up, and to those who have read similar observations on my blog before. To the latter group: a lot of these ideas spark and then die for me because I encounter them at a time that I don’t have room to fan them to flame. And I sometimes see the application for one set of circumstances and don’t or can’t extrapolate to the next time I need them. This is where the meta-self-reflection ends. Holy navel-gazing, Batman! (By the way, I typed Holy navel-gazing batman at first, and without the capital B and the comma, I got a hilarious image of a half bat, half man transfixed by his belly button. Now you’ve got it, too. You’re welcome.)