Pacing and Consistency

At the beginning of this year my life got busier.  It's all good things, nothing bad.  And the extra busyness is temporary (I hope).  But, needless to say, it has put a cramp in my writing output.

This cramp led to some frustrations.  When I got back from my Christmas break I just couldn't get back in my groove.  It seemed like something was always getting in the way of cranking out my 850 words (daily goal in 2014).

I was forced to take a step back.  I love writing but it's not my primary source of income.  And I realized that the frustration I felt was sucking all the enjoyment I gleaned from the process.

It wasn't worth it!

So I dropped the rigorous schedule I had built up for myself last year.  That schedule worked for 2014, not 2015.  I contented myself with just writing every day, word count be damned.  I'm still making steady progress just maybe not as much as I used to.  And I'm ok with that for right now.  The joy returned when I sit down to write so I believe the decision was a good one.

Consistency is key when it comes to writing.  I realized that this will probably not be the last readjustment I'll have to make.  Life gets in the way but that doesn't mean the writing has to stop.  Writing is a lifestyle.  You make it work.

Comments

  1. The Short Story and Flash Fiction SocietyMarch 9, 2015 at 4:08 AM

    Totally agree. What worked once won't necessarily work forever and readjustments are always needed. What also helps when writing short stories is to set a goal of lets say writing one short story every day instead of writing 1000 words a day. Counting in numbers is often stressful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alain GomezMarch 9, 2015 at 10:53 AM

      So true about the numbers. I think the problem was that they were always looming over my head. I got 700 words done, still need 150 more! I couldn't just be happy with what I had accomplished that day.

      And the other harsh reality was that torturing myself over 850 words a day wasn't changing my income in the slightest lol. Sales are completely independent from how hard a writer works.

      Delete
  2. The Short Story and Flash Fiction SocietyMarch 11, 2015 at 4:02 PM

    This is why counting in chapters or in stories is more helpful- you actually feel you have accomplished something if you have completed a story or a chapter. You can write 850 words and still be in the middle of something.
    Another thing that also works is to use something from a story to write other stories. It can be the same theme (for example, break ups ) or the same leading or supporting character. That can be more productive than trying to craft stories from scratch.

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