What the Number Three Meant Last Week

By

Scott D. Parker

Three.

I want you to keep that number in mind as you read this post. (And yes, it’s a magical number…)

Last week I posed the question about the best way to measure progress in a story. Specifically, if word count was the best way. Every writer differs and every writer has a way to determine progress, as Dana King commented on last week’s post.

Well, for me, I use word count. Always have. And starting on New Year’s Day, I had written at least 1,000 every day.

Until last Friday.

The day job part of last Friday made it feel like a Monday. Lots of meetings, lots of quick turnaround projects. Even though I worked from home, the day just kept consumed by the demands of the day job. Nothing wrong with that at all—better to have a Monday on a Friday than the alternative.

On the days I work in the office (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday), lunch is my fiction writing time. I take my Chromebook and write in an empty conference room. On the days I work from home, I use the fact that I have no commute to work in writing before the day job duties start. But last Friday when I woke up, I was still feeling tired so I opted to sleep in (something I rarely do, even on weekends). It was okay, I told myself, I can pick up the writing at the end of the workday. It’s all good.

But it wasn’t. You see, my early morning sleepy self forgot that the wife and I were heading out to see singer/songwriter Jeff Crosby at Houston’s Mucky Duck. The responsibilities of the day job were going to take me up to and a little beyond five o’clock. The show started at seven. Oh, and I also had to write my post for this blog.

What to do?

Well, I wrote the post y’all read last week and got it posted before we departed for the concert. With that done, I opened up my story and started writing some fiction.

I wrote three words. They consisted of two sentences and, after I hit the return key, an entire paragraph.

I looked at the screen, willing some words to make their way from my brain, through my arms and fingers, and onto the screen. They weren’t happening. That tiredness I woke up with was still with me, even more so with the day job’s activities. I knew I would return from the show and want to keep that one-on-one time with the wife, something that remains an important part of daily life. I also knew my 1,000-word writing streak was in jeopardy. The everyday part of the streak remained alive, but would the thousand-word streak?

Nope.

I chalked up a notch in the main streak and called it a day. There are more important things than getting a daily word count. It was a stumble, but you know what you’re supposed to do after you stumble, right?

Get up.

The next day I clocked in 1,172 words.

That’s the key takeaway I want to leave you with today. There will always be days in which you won’t or can’t write. A streak might be broken. As irritating as it may be—and after 55 straight days of 1,000+ writing days, it was a bummer—don’t let the break go on longer than a day. Get right back in the groove the next day and start a new streak or habit. Your future self will thank you.

Is Word Count the Best Way to Chart a Novel’s Progress?

by

Scott D. Parker

Words, pages, or scenes? What is the best way to measure progress when writing a novel?

When I wrote my first novel, I had zero idea about word count so I just stuck with scenes. They were as long as they needed to be.

After I met some fellow writers online, I learned that word count was also a method. In fact, it was often the preferred method publishers used to solicit stories and novels. So I switched and have been using word count as my standard ever since. I still let scenes do what they want.

 

Streaks

 

Writing streaks are a great way to maintain momentum when you are on a project. I use them all the time as well. Since 2022 was a disastrous year of (non) writing for me, I resolved that I would start a brand-new project on New Year’s Day 2023 and keep going everyday until I completed the book.

I have written everyday this year. Yay! The book is coming along nicely, and its serving to remind me about the power and excitement of actually creating a story out of thin air.

During every writing session, I have managed to write 1,000 words or more. That’s kind of a doable benchmark I use that is a nice round number. It has enabled me to reach 64,000 words in the book as of yesterday, Day 55 of the year, so that’s really nice to see. Plus, it’s not as aggressive as the 1,667 words per day you need to write, a la NaNoWriMo, to get a 50,000-word book done in 30 days, but it is usually an achievable threshold, especially when I’m in that flow state.

But is it a good one?

There have been a few days this year when I’m writing a particular scene and I half wonder if I’m writing more words just to reach 1,000 words. I cannot consciously say yes, but the nagging splinter of that idea that I’m just padding the word count remains.

I guess that’s what editing is for.

What about you? How do you measure progress on a book?

The Great February Reset

by
Scott D. Parker

Do you know the best thing about February is? No, not the holiday. Valentine’s Day is one of my least favorite holidays on the calendar. It has always felt manufactured, like if the folks who sold flowers, chocolates, and greeting cards all got together and invented a holiday to increase their bottom lines.

Actually, one of the best things about February is the chance to reset on any habits you might have already broken.

I suspect you’ve seen all the historical data that tell us many people stop doing their New Year’s Resolutions sometime around 14-19 January.  That's just two weeks. Typically we think of resolutions like going to the gym or talking a daily walk to help us exercise or stop eating a certain food or abstaining from alcohol.

Those are all well and good, but often, we creatives want to start a habit and, in some ways, that can be more difficult, especially if we’ve fallen by the wayside prior to New Year’s Day.

But here’s the thing: a New Year’s Resolution is not a one-and-done. It’s not like if you fall off the wagon sometime in mid January you have failed for the entire year. Let’s not judge an entire 365-day cycle by the actions of a 14 or so days.

I’m a firm believer that every new month is an opportunity to get back into a habit or reinforce one you started the previous month. I resolved to write a 1,000 words a day in 2022 (or reach 365,000 words for the year). I’m happy to say that my streak is intact, but boy, some of those days were a slog, especially with a day job.

In fact, I battled with myself over just how important a streak like this is. To remind myself of the power of streaks, I need only look at the small calendar on the fridge. I had fallen away from taking vitamins every day so I needed to start that back up again. I did the Jerry Seinfeld thing where I put an X on the calendar for each day I took my vitamins. Eight days into the new year, I forgot. Boom! Busted up my streak and my January has a hole in it. Irritation.

But my writing streak is alive. My writing resolution is alive. I hope your resolutions are alive, too.

If they’re not, dedicate the month of February to creating a new habit. It’s only 28 days long, an even four weeks. Chances are high if you maintain that new habit until 1 March, you’ll be good to go. But if not, then let March be your new start date. Heck, let each Sunday be a start date. Just start. Then continue. The rewards will flow to you.

Fiction Writing Streak #2 is Dead

Well, it had to happen, right?

My second fiction writing streak ended with a whimper on 18 July 2016. It started on 1 January 2015. That’s just a tad over a year and a half—565 days because 2016 is leap year—of writing some sort of fiction every day. That’s more than double my last streak of 255 days. And, obviously, it meant that I wrote some sort of fiction every day for all of 2015.

But it ended having been completely forgotten. On Monday night, as we were preparing for our trip—I’m writing this on Wednesday—I remembered thinking “I have to get my fiction in.” You see, as this summer has progressed, I’ve stumbled into another streak. I’ve written on my author blog every day this summer. And, in recent days, I’ve awakened at my typical 5:15am, but instead of writing on my current story, I’ve written a blog post. Now, it doesn’t take a genius to see the problem there and I freely admit to the change in priorities. But that’s where I’ve devoted my morning energies. I’ve moved the fiction to the evening.

And I missed it completely on Monday. Heck, I didn’t even realize it until I woke on Tuesday morning. I was crestfallen, to be sure, but also a little relieved.

Streak #2 had started to become an albatross, to be honest. There were some days when I pounded out 8,000 words. There were other days when I managed ten just to keep the streak alive. Another obvious issue is enthusiasm. When I’m excited about a project, I’ve got no issues writing. When the project becomes laborious, well, then, there is more than one issue a play, huh? That’s where I’ve found myself currently. I’m gearing up for my second Lillian Saxton novel that I’ll be starting on 1 August. “Gearing up” means researching The Battle of Britain and working over the plot and characters. Needless to say, “research” isn’t writing.

The way I get to split hairs is to say that my *writing* streak is still alive since I’ve written blogs on Monday and Tuesday. I’ve rarely counted blog-writing days as writing day, but I should. I *am* writing, after all.

So, there you go. Streak #2 is done. The breaking of the Streak has also given me a chance to contemplate how I move forward. It’s safe to say that once I start a project, I will write on it every day until completion. Maybe now that the Streak is broken, I can devote some of my time to marketing the books I write. By the time y’all read this, I will already be traveling. Traveling for me means when I’m not driving, I’m in the backseat, Bluetooth keyboard linked with my iPhone, writing. It’s amazing how much you can write when it’s basically the only option to pass away the miles. So, if nothing else, a new streak should have started on 21 July.

Let’s see how long this one lasts…