How I wrote for 30 days straight
I’ve been writing for many years but very infrequently have I been consistent in a meaningful way. It’s happened. But usually, it’s during something like a 30-day writing challenge and I feel drained and done by the end, rather than wanting to continue…for infinity.
But over the last thirty days I have written every day and it seemed to fit into my life well! I haven’t neglected my husband, my kid, my health, my house, or my job. I want to keep going (today is actually Day 31), and for the first time, I feel like I can keep going.
As I drew closer and closer to that thirty day mark, I started wondering what was different this time around?
I narrowed it down to three things, but the first is the most important.
writing sprints with friends
Without this group of fellow authors, I would have made it more than about fourteen days into this thirty day streak. I’m connected this group through a course I’m taking, though the specific Discord group is “people-led” rather than a specific selling point of the course.
And let me tell you - these people are THE BEST. There’s always someone willing to sprint, or to cheer me on while I set a 25 or 30 minute timer and get stuff done. We push each other to make progress while helping speak and think graciously about ourselves and our process. We talk about problems and help each other solve them.
We also make lots of jokes about our lack of focus without actually letting that temptation toward distraction get in the way of accomplishing our goals. It’s rare to find a group that’s truly helpful in this way so I’m so incredibly thankful to have it in my life.
gracious yet challenging daily word goal
When I’m trying to make changes in my life, I’m often tempted to “go big or go home”. Struggling to write consistently? Shoot for 2000 per day to make up for all those days before now that I did 0.
As you may be able to tell…this isn’t helpful. While aggressive goals can be helpful at times, they aren’t practical for every single day. In my life specifically, I’m 6 going on 7 months pregnant, trying to get my house ready for a new kid, chasing after a toddler, and navigating massive organizational change at my day job. Some days, I truly can’t afford to do more than a few hundred words.
So my goal ended up looking like this:
On days when the words are flowing AND I’ve got relatively more time and less other stuff pressing, shoot for close to 2000 words.
On days when the flow isn’t there or there’s too much piled on my plate, shoot for ANY words. Some words are better than no words.
With this plan, I honestly didn’t have that many days where I needed the “any words” goal. But when I needed it, it was so lovely to take advantage of and I could still feel like I was making progress every day for the thirty days.
Which leads me to…
making small steps every day
I’m in a drafting stage right now, but there were days during the last thirty days that I really didn’t want to draft. On those days, I did small, measurable things that contributed to the drafting process. I pre-wrote some chapters with brief outlines, I built out my character notes, or did some quick revisions of a small scene.
Unhooking myself from “only drafting counts” was so much more helpful than rigidness because I still felt like I was making progress every day.
I’m now looking forward to the next thirty days, and to applying these lessons to revisions and outlining, and all the other writing stages in this process that I’m building.
