Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The Deal

I've given into the suck today. All day, I've been doing other things to avoid working on my novel. About half an hour ago, I finally made myself open the file and write a few sentences. They were necessary, helpful sentences that I didn't know I needed until I wrote them.

But there are just a few of them.

Here's the deal. I'm figuring some things out -- I'm making my character's need stronger and streamlining a bit, and I'm about a third of the way into the book where the flaws in my structure are starting to show. It's not that I have no idea how to proceed, but it is true that proceeding may mean working more slowly than 2,000 words a day.

The tunnel's getting darker. It's asking me to watch my step. I want to be brave and charge ahead, but sometimes slow is smarter.

Yesterday, I worked on about 1,400 words, writing some material that helped me understand something that had been eluding me. It was a good day. It was not a 2,000 word day, nor did it help my percentage towards completing my goal since a lot of it was new.

I like goals, but man, sometimes they can get in the way if they make you rush things. I'm not changing the system -- yet -- but I am going to try thinking of it as a marker of progress more than a daily grind. My brain won't concentrate on big changes today. I know it will be able to do it on another day.

3 comments:

Ginger Johnson said...

You know, Rachel, I've been doing the same thing. I'm irritated beyond belief that I can't chug out a thousand words a day, but progress is progress, so I won't bemoan the fact that it's not going as quickly as I'd like.

Well, maybe I will a little bit.

Gwenda said...

Revision is usually slower and word count targets kinda go out the window. You'll finish when you're finished. As long as you're working, don't stress over it.

Rachel Wilson said...

Thanks for the comments, guys! You made me feel a lot better.