write a novel

Now that I’m bearing down on fifty thousand words – typically the minimum word count for a novel – I need to start deciding when I’m going to consider this goal to be ‘complete’. I think I’m going to wait for the entire first draft of this thing to be finished before I hit that ‘complete’ button – I can tell it’s going to be far beyond fifty thousand words long.

I’m proud to announce that I have stuck to my goal of writing every single day for an entire month now.

Four weeks ago, I had just shy of 14, 000 words in my novel. Right now, I’ve got 30, 000. That’s 16, 000 words written in a month! It may not be a lot by some people’s standards, but that’s huge for me! I’m just going to keep at it, writing every single day, for as long as I can. I’m thrilled!

I’ve been putting in some really solid writing effort these past few days, and I’ve realized that if I’m going to reach my goal of doubling my word count by the end of the summer, I’m going to need to stick to a writing regime.

I’m working two jobs on swing shifts, so scheduling definite time each day or setting down concrete daily word goals just isn’t feasible, so my summer goal is this: work on the novel every day. That’s it. Whether I get in two thousand words in a day or only manage five, it doesn’t matter. I just want to make a little progress towards this each and every day, and see where that takes me.

Having just rounded the 13000 word bend, I’m finding that I’m making steady progress on this, albeit slower progress than I had hoped. With four months of summer stretched out before me and a full plot line finally sketched out, I’m hoping to double that number by the time school starts.

As it turns out, my university course load and I disagree about how much time should be spent on this… needless to say, university usually wins.

That said, I’m now 8,000 words in. Not much, I know, but I try to make a little progress whenever I can. With a lighter course load waiting for me this Winter term, I’d like to find a little more time to devote to this. Wish me luck!

I want to do this.

I understand that this is a common goal, and that the writing world is filled with older, wiser and more educated competition.

I’m still going to do this.

I have stories to tell, and I know I can tell them.

Right now I have a Word document sitting open with a thousand words in it. I have a long way to go.