Last morning, I woke with the convicting realization that I had not written all year.
Dear readers, I can only tell you the truth. The moment my sock covered toes touched the floor of my bedroom, I headed for my laptop, yearning for the old aesthetic delights of a text-filled page.
It was an indirect route. I went to the kitchen first. I then realized that I had also not eaten waffles all year, so I sat down in a room full of syrup-covered brothers and ate several. I admired our blazing fire. I blew my nose. I presented my now 15-year-old brother with an unwrapped copy of A Tale of Two Cities.
Distractions? Ha. Of course not. These actions were deliberate. Useful. Productive. These actions were designed to awaken my creative tendencies and inspire me to write more eagerly than I ever have before.
When I did sit down to write, I had resolve, and I also had a fantastic inspiration:
I shall write about planning to write in the future.
The short-term goal I decided on in my last post was to “improve my writing skills by writing at least three times a week, and begin regularly tracking my writing progress.” I think I was supposed to work on this goal over break. Even if I was not supposed to, I am going to.
My lifelong dream is to be a writer. I have thought long and hard about how I plan to become one, and I have finally drafted an elaborate plan. To become a writer, I will sit down, I will write, and I will do it consistently.
To easily track my writing, I downloaded this fantastic excel spreadsheet, designed specifically to record the number of words written per day.
I did not invent this spreadsheet, I only thought to look for it. The spreadsheet was free, and I found it from this website: http://svenjaliv.com/yearly-word-tracker-spreadsheets/
On this spreadsheet, I can articulate yearly, monthly, and daily word count goals, and throughout the year, I get to see how the records of my actual work line up with the goals I set. The work will still be work, but this spreadsheet will completely exploit my natural thirst for productivity, and makes the writing process more exciting.
I am not expecting to write every day, but my spreadsheet asks for a daily goal and a daily update. My daily goal is 274 words. (This goal seemed attainable and when you multiply it by 365 it equals 100,000.) I will shoot for writing every day, but in case I miss, I will at least be sure to write 3 days a week.
What will I do with all these words? Most will be devoted to fiction: stories I write for my brothers, a historical fiction project I started last summer, and a short novella I started just because I felt like it. But some will also be devoted to this blog. I did not begin this blog intending to put a lot of effort into it, but I have grown attached to it. I hope to make it a nice thing to read.
