One Million Words—Month 1 Summary

So, the end of month 1 in the One Million Words challenge for 2014 brought low numbers and sad faces all around. I ended January at 23,650.

Wed, 1/1/14 1,192 1,192
Thu, 1/2/14 5,194 4,002
Fri, 1/3/14 8,550 3,356
Sat, 1/4/14 8,720 170
Sun, 1/5/14 8,792 72
Mon, 1/6/14 9,233 441
Tue, 1/7/14 9,220 (13)
Wed, 1/8/14 10,655 1,435
Thu, 1/9/14 10,839 184
Fri, 1/10/14 11,787 948
Sat, 1/11/14 12,150 363
Sun, 1/12/14 14,847 2,697
Mon, 1/13/14 15,259 412
Tue, 1/14/14 18,011 2,752
Wed, 1/15/14 18,234 223
Thu, 1/16/14 19,603 1,369
Fri, 1/17/14 20,096 493
Sat, 1/18/14 20,461 365
Sun, 1/19/14 20,461 0
Mon, 1/20/14 20,461 0
Tue, 1/21/14 20,461 0
Wed, 1/22/14 20,461 0
Thu, 1/23/14 20,461 0
Fri, 1/24/14 20,461 0
Sat, 1/25/14 20,737 276
Sun, 1/26/14 23,650 2,913
Mon, 1/27/14 23,650 0
Tue, 1/28/14 23,650 0
Wed, 1/29/14 23,650 0
Thu, 1/30/14 23,650 0
Fri, 1/31/14 23,650 0

I’m in the middle of a post about hours vs. words that I haven’t finished. I abandoned it when I realized I was supposed to be doing something else and never got back to it, something that’s very typical for me. :D Anyway, it does a good job of summing up why the time goals aren’t working for me. And since I actually want to get a lot of books written this year and at least one million words of fiction, I can’t keep hoping things will turn around. Since I can’t make myself write to a time goal, I’m just going to have to go back to writing to a word count goal, regardless of my theories about time goals being better. I still think they are, but if they don’t motivate me to write, they’re useless.

I don’t know if I want to try to make up the 59,683 I’m behind all in one month (I’m not even sure that’s possible for me) or if I want to just adjust to the new daily goal of 2,950. I’m thinking it might be best for me to go for the 2,950 and try to get in some extra on a couple days a week. Maybe aim for at least two 4,000 word days every week.

Well, I’m back to tracking my time again, and my timer says I’ve been on the internet for 28 minutes. Time to go do some writing!