500 words a day would be 178,000 for the year. You with me?

Isn’t that a scary thought? That’s 3.56 NaNoWriMos!!

(Actually, now that I wrote that out, it sorta makes me feel like a slacker as I should be able to do 12 NaNoWriMos a year if I was hardcore! :-))

So just about everything you read says writing 500 words a day is a good benchmark to push yourself for. I know that the point of picking a small daily goal is to make it less intimidating than a huge goal (like, say, 50,000 words in a month?) but I actually work better in the long game than the short game. I may not have time to write every single day but when I do have time to write, it’s a marathon session. It’s just the perils of my crazy job but, so far, it works for me.

(I was just going to start this sentence with “so” again. God, do I do that too often or what? I have so many weird ticks on this blog that I don’t do in my normal writing. I wonder if its because I write more like how I talk on here. Hmm. I must talk like a freak.)

Anyway (another blog word crutch, I know), I decided focus on trying to hit 178,000 words for the year which is the same total you would be at if you wrote 500 words a day. Yes, it’s much scarier when you write it all out like that but I need some kind of specific goal or I just flounder about.

You know I have already made myself a spreadsheet to calculate all this shiz because that is how I roll. I should be at 6,827, so I’m 4,919 behind.

Math: Now for writers!

The hard part, for me, is what words I will be allowed to “count.” I write well more than 200k words in a year but I feel like I should limit it for this to be a challenge. Afterall, the point of doing this is to produce more “new” content and preferably fiction so I think I need to set a few ground rules:

• I’m not counting blog posts unless the blog post is actually something I’m going to use in a story. <- brutal, I’m such a damn slave driver!
• I’m not counting rewrites or revisions unless it is a total, from scratch, new scene.
• I’m may not be counting non-fiction. This will be case by case.

So, sadly, I am only at a mere 1,908 right now. Such a loser, I know. But I figured out how to edit my little potato friend (who is the true love of my life, as you well know) to reflect the new goal so we are in business. I feeling like, between Script Frenzy and NaNoWriMo this year, I should really be able to do this so I am going to Spock this action up.

1%

Hilarious, potato man, hilarious. Way to build my confidence.

I want to change the word on the little green box to “STUFF.”

So what goals are you setting for yourself this year?