Still, I have been writing! That's a plus.
Hands-down the most productive month I had as far as my story is concerned was November. I've forgotten just how much I can get done when I have someone working with me and I have a deadline. It's a process I'm going to try to expand through December, and maybe my ultimate goal of being finished with this thing by the end of the year won't be such a pipe dream after all.
I never thought I would be able to write more than 20k words in a month. I don't think I've ever actually written 20k words in a month, but it always seemed easier to tackle than 50k. I'm always a self-editor. A horrible one. I've probably edited the mess out of this post before hitting that wonderful/terrifying "publish" button. November forced me to deal with that problem of mine and realize I need to scale back on my perfection issues. More than that, it showed me Ican scale back. It wasn't always easy and I wasn't always successful, but I managed.
I should say that I ended up adding 30k words to my story over the course of last month. I more than doubled where I had been prior to November 1st. More than that, I was actually pretty pleased with what I churned out. Sure, I know there should be a lot more edits down the road, but it made me move forward when I may not have otherwise. I could still be stuck back around the first few chapters debating about whether my main character should say something a little different. I was able to accomplish this because a friend of mine helped set smaller goals and we worked on them together.
Each Sunday we would sit down and write 5000 words. No matter what, we would work until we hit that mark. We could always edit after Sunday, but it made us write without over-thinking. The goal of 5000 was also further broken down into half-hour increments. Start at 11am, write until you get to 500 words, if not past 500 words at 11:30 keep going, get snack, etc. I was surprised the first go-round how well this worked. By 8pm I was almost 6000 words richer than I had been before. It may be small, but it's certainly an accomplishment for someone who overly thinks about each word she is writing.
These little spurts every week helped me relax a little and focus on the details throughout the rest of the week. It was such an awesome exercise that I think it's something I'm going to continue to incorporate for as long as I can. I never realized how useful having such a set routine could be. It may not work for everyone, but for anyone who may be struggling to get through a story because of their perfectionist ways, I strongly encourage you try it.
