the official halfway point of my novel

I wrote 2,239 words today, bringing total word count (according to Word, anyway) to:
50,415 words

Cool! And I'm in the 'serious' stuff now. My M.C. just got the phone call that's changing everything, knocking her life out of the little spin she had going and making her deal with some real serious shit. (at least in my mind) Sorry, toots, that little romance you had going is going to come to a screeching halt...don't quite know how I'm going to deal with that now that I'm here, but I'll find a way (and totally change it in the next draft, I'm sure)

Well, not to mix joy with doubt but, that's to be expected of a "writer" I suppose. I decided to prevent my husband from asking me any further about the draft by reading some parts aloud to him; gee, that was a mistake. Not only did I get the opportunity to hear how clunky some parts where, which is not a big deal except it just sounded that much worse aloud, I also got to hear my TONE in the writing. I feel like I'm writing for a 15 year old. Not that that's bad, but it's not really my intention...although, starting out with little intention it's hard to say that it's not my intention. Anyway, that kinda made me depressed. Thinking, all this sounds like a little high school drama, even though it's happening to a 25 year old...I can make the excuse that she's emotionally immature (3rd person limited), and that's part of what this book is about, but I could also say that the writing tone is a reflection of my own mental state...so it's not totally reassuring. But then I just remind myself, I'm not trying to write the freakin' Great American Novel here. This isn't the book I'll be spending the rest of my life with.

And also, can you name a guy who's supposed to be Italian/Mexican "Kevin"?? LOL, that didn't quite happen right. I've decided I'm going to take the Italian heritage out, make that side American. Things like this are funny to me because they're so obvious, but that's what happens when you have a character and you need to name the sucker without quite knowing what his background is. And now I have some time to ignore it, because the protag won't be spending any time with his family in the upcoming 20-50 pages, at least I don't think. So I just have to make sure that no one's Italian in his family; damn, I'll have to erase that dialogue about him visiting his relatives in Italy, LOL. Incidentally, I had thought about naming him "A.J." for "Antonio Juan" when my husband graciously pointed out those are the two most generic names in Italian & Spanish...so I'm sticking with Kevin for now, as a working name.

Sure, it's a little anticlimactic, but I hit 50k!!!! I know the last half of the book will go a lot faster now that I have a routine down, now that I've solidified my commitment to EVERY DAY practically (I do take weekends off, mostly because we're usually not at home). Maximum 5 weeks, as long as I can keep my schedule and nothing tragic happens.

i couldn't help myself

I couldn't help but change a few things in my WIP. I've been trying to write this novel without changing or editing anything (except spell-check), because I want to finish it, and anything that gets in the way of that is bad.

But I couldn't help myself. I had to change certain things that didn't quite make sense to me when I read them, like once I wrote "inside" when I meant "outside" and things like that. And I added to the draft in a few places, just with a few words 0r note of further explanation.

I was strict with myself, though. I refused to let myself delete anything at all, or add significantly. When I would run across a sentence that would look better structured a different way, or something looked like it would fit better in the first part of the paragraph rather than the last sentence, I did not let myself change it. I know for me, this is a possible pathway to demise. I kept telling myself, if this is obvious now, it will be obvious to me later. I can wait.

Lately I've even been scared of reading the thing, partly I'm afraid of getting tired of it; I know the feeling of reading the first paragraph so many times you've beyond memorized it. Mostly I've been afraid it sucks...so I was pleasantly surprised when I read the last 20k words I've written. It's not brilliant work, but it's cohesive. It might be slow, but it makes sense for the most part, and the best part is, it's improving - I think.

i love the community budget center

In our small town, the best place to buy a book is Kmart. At least that's what I thought before I strolled into the community budget center. Why didn't I go there before?!?!?!?! 40 books for 11 bucks. And some of them were published within the last 2 years! woo hoooo! Of course I'm a bibliophile. DUH!

I'm on a serious high right now! I used to go to the Arc Thrift Shops in Denver and spend 40 bucks on a cartful of books...pretty much any author or title I've even vaguely heard of (or sounds interesting) I would buy...it was great to get back to that 'stuff your sack' activity of buying books. I don't need to stinkin' Kmart!

I'm a big advocate of buying books at the bookstore; but for those writers who are already rolling in the millions, I'm happy to buy them for 25 cents apiece. (do I even have to tell you how many novels, and how many double-triple-quadruple copies of them, where there by Danielle Steele? Wow. Same for Mr. Koontz and Mr. Chrichton, though not to the same extent),

Another cool thing: I'm not a religious person (I'm one of those people that says, 'I'm spiritual.' lol) , but I love getting copies of tiny books; it's another one of my sicknesses. So I get these tiny copies of The Psalms, the same book but in three different colors, because they're just so darn cute! and the clerk says, "Sorry, can't sell you these." She had to give them to me. That was neat.

YES!! 3,817 words today

I am very happy with myself today. I almost doubled my output. I wrote for two hours. This is a good thing for me to tack onto my word count goal, a time goal. Things helping me this morning:

• I woke up early
• I kept to my goal of writing for 2 hours and not looking at word count
• I just kept whispering to myself, "keep going, you can do it."
• I'm getting good at this whole 'listening to myself' thing. I think climbing a Fourteener recently is helping me too; just doing it, whether it hurts or not (although on the trail, I had other people cheering me on...I don't necessarily have that here)

I'm extremely close to the halfway goal. (48,176) I've decided after I hit halfway, that's when the plot twist will happen. As close as possible after that 50k mark. That's when everything changes. I'm excited but also scared. I feel like I'm repeating myself. I don't care.

The more I write in this blog, the more I start to say to myself, "GOD you're freaking obsessive. GOD you're freaking anal." But this is what I'm doing, and it's working for me, and that's all that matters. It's kind of like a little reward after writing, I can go and talk about it on my blog. I actually read (as in red...lol) the thing myself last night, thinking, this is good...not good as in this is quality work that people should enjoy! - but good as in, I'm talking about writing, which inspires me, which helps me feel "real" in this place where I often tell myself, "you're not a writer if you're not published" - but ha! I am published. I've had four poems published in my life. So there .

Now I can delve into one of the novels I bought at the grocery store yesterday. Sadly, there is no real "bookstore" to be had in my small town of less than 10,000. I've been here a little over a year...took some getting used to, not being able to just run out to B&N or Borders every time I feel the fancy. But, there is no shortage of women's fiction/romance on the grocery store shelves, which is what I feel like reading right now.

an interesting note

On the days I don't write as much, I write more on my blog. Is that because I'm mentally "making up" for not writing in the fiction, like a guilt thing? Or just that I'm starting to train my mind to make words? I dunno...maybe there's nothing to this.

a few more words today - added 472

I had been mentally nagging at myself all day. C'mon, write a little more...so I did. I'm going to try to not count my words right at the end of what I think is the point I should stop; I'm going to keep writing, try to go a little further. Anyway, today's output is 1,686 words, bringing grand total to 44,359.

One one hand I'm really excited about getting to the halfway point of my goal, total 100k. On the other hand I'm wondering if I'm being a bit too obsessive about the numbers. Everytime I check my word count, it seems anal. And it often is a number that's less than what I want it to be when I check it - like I want it to say 1,000 words, it only says 400. At any rate, I suppose it's a good working motivator for now. Today's "disappointment" at not hitting 2k or above will hopefully spur me tomorrow to write more.

Tomorrow I'm not going to count my words until I've been writing, or sitting at the keyboard thinking about what to write next, for two hours. I think a time limit to give myself before checking my word count will be good for me.

a positive thing

One good thing that's happened the last two weeks that I've been tracking my progress, trying to find the right time to write, exploring my writing habits etc.: I'm no longer addicted to TV. Of course I still watch TV. But I no longer wake up, go downstairs, plop on the couch and turn on the tube to see what's on. That's a good feeling! In fact, a great feeling!

1,214 words today so far

There is something happening: if I don't get up semi-early in the morning, I'm not in the mood to write. Today and yesterday have been hard days; maybe it's because I'm again in a spot where I'm not quite sure where my characters are going. I'm sort of 'winging it,' waiting for the right moment to come along where the *really* important plot twist comes and changes everything, knocks my character out of this little world she's made for herself and back into the fire. Maybe I'm scared of getting there, so I'm stalling. I didn't hit 2k words today. I had two sessions of writing, one before going shopping and one after. The first session only produced 442 words. Am I getting too caught up in the numbers?

At least I'm feeling my writing is getting better. But at the same time I'm more fully realizing that this draft is willy-nilly (and I knew this when starting out). I've sat here thinking, well maybe I want to change the entire setting - geez! I better decide this before the first rewrite. For now I'm thinking, NO. I'll keep it the same, and the setting I'm imagining can be for my NEXT project. At the same time I'm thinking my writing is improving, all the doubts are still real: I don't really know my characters, I don't really know how to carry out certain things, I'm scared of the idea of looking at the completed draft, of reading all the way through and thinking, "God, what the HELL was I thinking?? This is utter crap and can't be fixed!"

But I can try to get back to what I told myself before I started this book (with little planning, mind you, just an idea of a girl who I wanted to change by the end of the book): this is my first novel, I just need to write it! I need to know that I can do it, that I can write a semi-cohesive narrative that is novel-length. I've gotten tired of listening to myself saying, "Well I know I could do it, if I just wanted to." Actually doing it is a major difference.

And if nothing else, writing is actually getting me into reading again. For about a year, I read little to no fiction. I might start a book here or there, but didn't really carry through...but now I am excited about reading again. Which is really nice. But I still find myself wavering in my calling; thinking, Is this really what I am meant to do? Am I sure I shouldn't be doing something else? But then, alas, I can't think of anything else...

And now, reading over the first sentence of this entry, I realize: there are a lot of times when I don't want to write. Is it a bad sign that more often than not, I find sitting down to write challenging? There is this myth that writers need to get inspiration, that if the muse isn't there you can't write. I attribute most of my challenge to the barrage of insecurities I throw at myself every day. In the face of all those insecurities, I say "fuck you" and continue with my writing, feeling like a draft horse pulling thousands of pounds of weight behind her. I only hope one day that pulling all this emotional weight through everything will pay off in a published novel (just maybe not this one; I imagined *this* work being a "practice" novel). But I'm just beginning. I'll give myself time. I realize all this time I spent as a child and adolescent, and even as an adult writing, has been yes, practice, but also a lot of pussy-footing around; never completing anything unless it was for a class, etc. Always letting the idea that I'm not "task-committed" stick to me like a stigma that lets me make excuses for not finishing things.

On these hard days, I still comfort myself with at least being able to hit 500 words, the original goal. I comfort myself by at least writing at all. I'm way short of 2k today, but that's okay. I hope to have more energy tomorrow. And on the days when I'm writing good, feeling into the groove, knowing kind of what's coming next, I'm not going to let myself stop at 2k or slightly above. I'm going to push myself to 3k. Even though it's hard work, I love it. And one thing is for sure, my discipline is improving. And that's potentially the biggest factor in deciding whether I will become a published novelist or not; whether I can stick with the discipline of writing every day, whether my body/mind wants to or not.

2,103 words today

Today I didn't really feel like writing; I woke up late, lazed around for a bit, took a shower...finally sat down to the computer. But I did it, and reached my goal. So I'm happy. Sometimes I feel like I don't write enough, but 2k words is a good amount...I think I'm just anxious to get the thing done. That will be another 5 weeks or so, if my output stays similar.
I'm glad, at least, that even when I don't feel like writing I still do...and I've been somewhat more satisfied with my writing lately - as in, I'm not cringing at every other word...
Keeping a daily notebook with my word count, as well as posting it here, is really helping me stay motivated! So is the fact that I'm actually looking forward to being done with it so that I can "really" start writing...lol.

i did it i did it i did it!

I submitted a short story to a publisher.
www.glimmertrain.com
It will take 16 weeks for a reply (shrug) and they "can't" comment on rejections. But that's okay. Oh, and they pay $500 for accepted manuscripts. Now I have begun my Submissions Tracker excel file, and I'm ready to really start submitting things...via snail-mail, that is. I've found a lot of places don't accept submissions before Sept. 1, so at that time I should have a good list going of places to start receiving rejections from, LOL.
I need to make sure I'm formatting things correctly...oh well, next time...formatting is sooo important.

2,052 words today//40,570 words total

I'm beginning to feel that I might possess the motivation needed to become an author. Today was one of those days where the writing feels really good at first, and by about 1,300 words I'm checking every fifty words to see how much farther I have to go to meet my "second" goal of 2k words. 500 words is just too easy right now (that feels good to say!).

My problem lately is, I think my scenes are moving too slowly. Today's scene started out w/my character getting taken home from a party by someone, and 2,000 words later they're barely wrapping up at the restaurant he took her to because she didn't feel like going home. It's a lot of dialogue, and I suppose I shouldn't care at this stage in the writing; but I do worry about it. It's been like this the last couple of weeks - I'm feeling that I'm just taking too long with these scenes. I get to the end of my writing day and go, "Wow, I didn't get too far...how many words will I cut from this eventually?" But I'm stayinig true to the idea that I can get through this first draft and evaluate the finished novel from a more experienced perspective. Besides, how can I know the scene is too long until the whole thing is finished? How can I know if it's moving too slowly until I can go over the whole thing? And I will have a whole thing, I know it. It feels good to be confident about writing, it really does.

Today's word count: 2,118

I got up early this morning and wrote, it was great. I was thinking about my story last night, and was able to get some momentum today. I'm actually looking to a point where I'm more excited (confident) about the writing and will surpass the 2k average I've been hitting.

I would write more, but my husband and I are leaving for a trip this weekend (a break from writing? yes...it's with family...I'm sure I won't get any writing done). I LOVE the feeling of wishing I could write more! It's so much better than "I don't wanna write I don't wanna write" that I get into sometimes when putting things off.

So my total word count is somewhere around 38,500 - getting closer and closer to the midway point of 50k! woo hoo!! That will be a real accomplishment for me, and the more I write the more motivated I am to finish, no matter what. I am on a high, can you tell? :D

Now I'm off to pack and take a shower in 20 minutes, hope I don't forget anything!

608 words for today

All right, not great but not bad. Progress is progress. I actually ended up skipping past part of the scene I didn't really know how to write. It's okay. This weekend is going to be the problem. We'll be out of town, and I don't know how much time I'll have to write. It's like every time I go on a trip: I take two or three books with me, and never look at a single one.

But, I hit my goal of at least 500, and my hands are killing me. I think I might do some reading now. I should really be reading a lot more. My upper right arm is now throbbing, reminding me that I can't just type all day, no matter how fun it is.

I feel like such a juvenile sometimes; maybe it's the coupla years I decided I'd thumb my nose up at my own writing dream coming back to haunt me. My scenes & dialogue feel so...sophomoric. Like trying to play a guitar when you don't know the chords. Like I'm not fully accessing myself or my talents. I don't know what I'll think when I'm completely done; at least I will have finished it. Initially, that's the only thing I set out to do. Not a good novel, just a novel.

hope for writers who like reality tv

Four Ways Reality TV Can Improve Your Fiction
by Jennifer Minar

(btw - 50 words on the WIP! yay for me) :(

Bad news

I haven't written shit today on my WIP and it's already 4 o'clock (good reason to write early in the day, just to get it freakin' done). I did sign myself onto a new forum, AbsoluteWrite, and spent the last hour editing my profile and writing my "hello all i'm me" message, but that's IT. Days like this, I'm constantly thinking of writing in the back of my head, but I'm just not doing it.

Tonight, I won't let myself get away...I'm going away for the weekend and so I HAVE to get something done today...just maybe while my husband is home, which is sometimes difficult. I have this scene I'm going to finish up but I'm not that excited about it, I guess. I may not bang out a couple thousand words, but I will do the 500 that I originally asked of myself when I first started writing this thing. I want to have it done before November so I can participate in NaNoWriMo with a fresh idea and one book under my belt. I found out about NaNoWriMo just a few months ago, and I'm glad I did. This is the kind of thing I need - procrastination and low self-esteem re: writing do NOT go well together! Those two things just kill my drive sometimes... albeit I let them...

I do have excuses though. Not very good ones, but laundry had to be done (at the laundromat). And I had to do the dishes. And most importantly, I woke up late. And in a bad mood. Everything I just wrote I have control over. The only reason I haven't written yet is because I'm simply being lazy today...and my wrists hurt (been dealing with this a couple of years)...but all of this is under my control. Just need to open up that file and start typing. After King of the Hill. I promise.

Tip: avoid bedroom writing

No, I'm not going to talk about how having sex and writing at the same time doesn't work, I haven't tried that yet! Let me just say I do NOT recommend writing on a laptop on your bed on a hot day in the middle of the afternoon. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. I'm a sleepy person as it is. I wasn't too excited with today's scene, the party, and I guess I got really bored with it. Plus it was freakin' hot. (speaking of rooms and writing, here's a good but somewhat depressing article on the subject)

I had good intentions: unhook from the internet, get out of the living room where TV rules (although I had it off...it still calls to me) and just try to get into the zone. I was pushing it away today I think, I definitely have better stuff in the draft but today was not my day. I still cranked out the damn words (as it's been said it's easy to write badly, good writing's the hard part).

I did get writing done today, 2,271 words to be exact about it. Bringing my total count to about 36,000 words. Here is some of my flowery prose (insert sarcastic tone here); there are already a lot of "wasted" words - but I need to just get through it, and I realize this. Anyway, on to the excerpt:

“You’re obviously not into going back out there,” Jamie said.
“I don’t
know any of them,” he replied.
“Neither do I!” she protested. “Except for
Carol.”
“Yeah, me too. God, Jamie, is it just me or does this dialogue
suck?”
Kevin looked at his watch. “Well, we got two more hours of this, at
least.” He glanced unenthusiastically towards the living room where a rash of
laughter had erupted.
“Let’s play a game!” they heard Carol scream, and Jamie
winced. She looked over at Kevin, who was doing the same. Tony was just now
coming inside, and smiled devilishly at both of them.
“What’s goin’ on,
kids?” Tony said.
Jamie began to feel like she was at a high school
party.

I warned you! Here's some more genius writing:

“Then there’s Shawn,” Carol was going on, although when she said Shawn’s name
her voice changed somehow. Jamie guessed it was Carol’s new friend, but she was
wrong. “Shawn is Clancy’s brother; I really don’t know why he’s here, but what
the hell? Jeff said he’s home from school now, living at home just like me. so
who gives a rat’s ass?”
“Carol, people don’t say rat’s ass anymore,” I told
them. But they weren’t listening. Carol hadn’t wanted to say rat’s ass anyway.
She was too concerned about her new boyfriend.
“Clancy is my
boyfriend,” Abbey interjected loudly, piercing Jamie’s ear with the high
pitch.
“Okay,” she replied, laughing and trying to make Abbey think she
couldn’t give a rat’s ass.

(No, there are no first person characters in my story!) I know, I know, these little excerpts are silly. But, I do get joy out of blogging them. Maybe that's the only reason I'm writing them (but no, I was doing them before this. My characters get annoyed with me sometimes). Maybe I'm just reminding myself that not every word (a whole page, even) has to be perfect the first draft. This is my chance to be crappy and not care about my style. Which is good, seeing as how a couple years ago I decided I 'didn't want to be writer' and haven't written much since...

Things are going very slow in my novel right now, even though I know the direction I'm going (mostly). I think it's because I'm writing the part before the big part, the part where *major* changes will happen - the asteroid hits, basically, LOL, in Jamie's world...I think I'll be cutting a lot of the first half of the draft; but I'll never know until I'm finished and am in the rewrite phase! I'm looking forward to that. It's actually my favorite part; it's like taking a lump of clay and making it into something beautiful, something with a form. Is it so bad to start out as a lump of clay?

Time not wasted! I swear!

I was about to write that I've done no writing today, and that the last two hours have been wasted on reading posts at Absolute Write, a website I discovered when I first started writing what I like to call "My First Crappy Novel" - this has morphed into two working titles: "People Having Lives" (which in my tired state wrote Lifes the other day - eye roll!) and "Deer in the Headlights."

At any rate, these last two hours haven't really been a waste of time. Aside from getting a laugh from a post by somone who has self-published books that are riddled with typos and grammar problems, then accusing people of being jealous, I've gotten some really good information - I think half the trouble with me is wanting to know how other writers do it - thank god for forums and blogs! It is probably because I want to assure myself that I am doing at least as good as or better than the others out there. And today, I'm mostly silently commiserating with myself and others who can't read a word of their writing and not think "This is shit." - it seems to be a commonplace thing, so I won't worry about it unless I rewrite the thing twenty times and five years from now it still sucks. Lots of people don't sell their first novel anyway, right? Right. Why am I so concerned about 'reading' it? Aren't I supposed to be writing it? LOL.

Every five minutes I say to myself, I need to get writing! I did manage to turn off the TV twenty minutes ago, which didn't really help because I usually ignore it anyway...it did motivate me to write, I guess, just not on the novel....

Just got a knock on my door - a sheriff looking for someone named Roberta...weird! and a little scarey...

I'm sure that I'll spend ten or twenty minutes editing this post, then maybe I'll finally get around to writing. I have the opposite problem of many writers, and I know I would be whipped if any of them were physically near me - I have too much time to write. And I still put it off. Bad me!! Unfortunately, making myself feel guilty about not writing never helps much. But my little black book (where I put my word count for the day and the time window that I was writing in) and reading all those posts will - reading *something*, almost always *anything* (except maybe directions for hooking up a CD Rom) will inspire me to write - actually, anytime I see something written badly, I'm inspired to write. Even if my stuff is crap, it's gotta be better than someone else's. Oddly enough, rereading that last sentence, I'm not a competitive person. I guess I just like to feel superior. ;)

Of course I'll be posting later with a word count for today...I won't let myself let this day leave without putting something down to call progress.

All in all, it's really not that difficult, just writing. That's all it is. Just moving the fingers and making words. It's making it good that's the hard part - and I can do that in the second draft. I'm much too critical of myself to even know if anything I'm writing right now is good.

excerpts from my novel-in-progress

This is from the beginning:

She went to the trash bin in the kitchen, and spotted the paper underneath a large collection of cigarette butts and crusts from Maylon’s toast, a small part of these items congealed together with a large wad of Maylon’s spit. She avoided all that and picked that paper up by one edge, letting the nastiness fall into the bin off of the paper. Jamie knew Maylon wouldn’t be checking the trash to see if the paper was still in there, but ever since she had decided to move out she was compelled to hide any traces of evidence that she was looking for a new place or even thinking of leaving. It would be best to just copy the number and leave the paper in the trash. And best to call from work, where there was no way Maylon would know she ever placed a call. She found the ad, copied the number onto a piece of paper she swore to herself she’d throw away before coming home, and started getting ready for work.

Boring, huh? Well I just wanted to see it online, anyway. :P

“A writer, that’s neat,” Jamie said. She’d never known any real writers, only a few bad poets had tried to win her over with no success.

(LOL, of course a writer with a character who writes. classic.)

Well, when I started writing this novel, after little planning, I decided it was going to be a crappy novel and I was going to let it be just that, to 'free myself' from a constant Mr. Bringdown ('that sucks, why are you writing that?') in my head (better known as the Inner Critic). I'm coming back into writing after a few years of other obsesssions (The Sims - it still controls half my life - beware!). I've read that so many people get caught up in editing before they finish; and they never finish. So I'm not editing anything (except, the other day I did go through and take out a bunch of really's and very's - but that's surface stuff). I know I've got whole sections of crap, but I'm just ignoring it and plowing on. I've got a party coming up tomorrow. :D In my book, I mean.

The Ro-Train is born.

Welcome. It's the first day of the rest of my blog. Wow, I'm feeling ultra-creative today. (rolls eyes, mocks self). Really, welcome! I am an aspiring novelist hoping to put the aspiring past me. I'm 1/3 through my first novel (the first one I'm really serious about completing, anyway-I have about 25 first chapters, lol). So I thought I'd create a healthy distraction. Actually it will be a tool, and maybe somewhere along the line it will become interesting to others, particularly writers who are curious to know what other writers do and what their habits are. I'm busy trying to develop some rituals, LOL, though actually writing is a good ritual for me to start with.

I've been great the last two days, 2,460 words yesterday and 1,304 words today. I'm happy with that. Anyway, welcome, who knows what is to come. For now I'm going to sit in wonder at my new blog. (hear the "ahhhhh" from The Simpsons intro, lol). Then maybe later I'll add something new. Or maybe just delete this post. LOL. (more self-mocking occurs)

I've been motivated by a couple things lately:

• my friend Melissa, who has written a novel and knows what she's talking about.
• leafing through the book Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury (not a writer I read often, unfortunately, but I've heard good things about the book before, and it was the only thing that grabbed by attention at B&N the other day which also fit my budget. ;D
• at Barnes & Noble I also bought a little spiral weekly planner, and each day I am going to write how many words I've written. I'm imagining the disappointment of a blank day will give me some motivation; it's too easy to think "oh, I've written nothing today," but if it's right out there, I'll be motivated just to put a number on the page. My goal has been 500 words a day, and the days I do write I usually surpass that...then there are holes of days where nothing gets done, and it gets easier the second and third days.
• Oh yes, and upon completion of 30,000 words, I started a new file (I write on the computer). So it's more motivating, not seeing that 116 double spaced pages I've already written - you would think it would be motivating to see all that writing, but not for me...