mood: day job blues
pandora/ipod: "f*** you" by cee-lo green
It's that time again.
When I need to write to deadline.
And you know what that means: a crazy deadline gimmick that keeps me on track!!!!
I wish I was one of those people who can just write all the time. They finish one project, and BOOM! immediately into the next one. They're like an endless fountain of creativity and productivity, always cranking out enormous word counts, three manuscripts a year, ideas popping into their heads like they're going out of style.
I hate you people.
Clearly, I am NOT one of those writers. I'm a slogger. I keep a spreadsheet with my daily progress reflected against my goal. If I get ahead, I can slack. If I get behind, I need to buckle down. But it's the only way I can hit deadlines.
So here's the plan, which I'm calling 90 Days of Pain. In the next 90 days, I'm going to write approximately 80K words. That should be pretty easy - a mere 900 words a day on average. When I wrote TEN in ten weeks, I was doing almost double that (and it almost killed me...)
But the problem is, I've been averaging like 900 words a week, not a day. Which is why I need the structure.
And 900 words a day sounds perfectly doable. But it really hasn't been. Not lately. For example, last night I was at Twilight Zone: Unscripted, tonight I'm attending a premiere screening of Jennifer Bosworth's new short film, and Thursday night I'm seeing an early screening of The Woman In Black. Yeah. So when, exactly, do those 900 words a day come in?
Don't ask.
Oh, and not to mention all the promo for TEN I've got to start planning. In just under two weeks, I'll be announcing a HUGE contest for the TEN cover reveal, then I'm putting together a storyboard for the trailer (two words: The Ring) the concept for which is so scary it actually gave me goosebumps, AND I'm putting together TEN swag (three words: collect them all) which I want to have ready by the time the ARCs come out in a few weeks.
So yeah, it's not like I'm busy.
90 Days of Pain. Starting....NOW!
You can dew eet!
ReplyDeleteAnd I can't wait to see the cover for TEN!!
It's all so very exciting. Good Luck on your writing.
Lisa @ fic talk
you Go girl :)
ReplyDeleteOooh, I'm sort of like you - I also need deadlines and weird motivational tools to keep going. For me, without them, I just succumb to doubts and procrastination. I don't think there's anything to be ashamed in that - you just do what you gotta do to keep going, even if it's sometimes less than organic! Good luck with your 90 days of pain. It...sounds painful.
ReplyDeleteSo far, very painful. Also, very far behind. HAHAHAHA
ReplyDeleteGretchen you can totally do it! I'm so excited for Ten, it's in my top 5 most anticipated books for the year. I'm like a small dog, peeing with excitement.
ReplyDeleteSounds fabulous to me! But yea, I'm nuts.
ReplyDelete