Day Two recap: Crushing the Words

Yesterday was an even better word count day than the first day. In fact, it was a new record of 3384. This before work time is making a huge difference. The problem remains, though, that this is going to be a much longer book than 50k, so really, I might not even be keeping up. I suppose I have some control over that. I wouldn't be a good situation to make 50k but not to finish the novel. That's kind of what happened last year, and I just finished that one last month. The thing about that is that without the external motivation, you stop working.

My advice to others doing this, as someone who finished last year, is to keep up your quota. If you're on a roll, take advantage of it early on. Then later, when you're feeling very, very unproductive, you'll have that cushion. Last year I'd come down and write for an hour before eating dinner, when usually I'd have dinner straight away because I was hungry. Then I'd return later on, and usually set the timer, making myself write for, say, half an hour. Then, break. You want to be pretty much within sight of the finish by Thanksgiving, because you might have some days around then where you don't get much done. Ooh, and "park on a downward slope." When it's getting close to time to stop, stop at a point where you know what you're going to write next. This way, when you start again, you'll get going right away.