by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
One cool thing about blogging for over ten years is that a lot of the posts form a sort of unexpected diary. I was glancing over some older posts and came across this one from 2010. My son and daughter would have been 13 and 9 when I wrote it. I spoke of our bike ride on a nearby greenway and how we were biking so erratically (my daughter was still on a little kid bike) that a jogger kept passing us over and over again. He was going slow and steady and despite our occasional bursts of speed, kept overtaking us.
I made the observation that this was how my writing life worked. I didn’t go fast enough to get burned out but I didn’t go slow enough to get overwhelmed with the length of the project.
When I’ve spoken in front of groups, I’m frequently asked how many books a year I write. My answer is 3 1/2 (when I first started writing it was far fewer than that…the majority of my books have been written in the last 5 years). They always think this sounds impressive until I tell them that my goal each day is 3 pages. It’s funny how it sounds much less-impressive when you break it down.
I think the danger of writing a lot of books can be, depending on the writer, the burnout that can follow. I’ve been burned out before, even writing at my pace, and it wasn’t fun. I felt like I was just going through the motions.
One reason I enjoy this slower, steadier pace is because I’m a fan of breaking down everything from writing to promo to cleaning out a project into smaller tasks. I stay motivated when I have a string of small successes every day and when I meet my smaller, reasonable goals.
There are a lot of writers that are meeting really impressive word count goals every day and are able to maintain it for years. I can understand their reasoning: they know that they will likely make more money if they publish more books. My income at this point is pretty steady…an amount that I can count on. But it took me a long while to get here.
The important thing is to find your pace. Only you know how much is going on in your life at one time. Make sure that whatever goals you set for yourself are attainable and make you comfortable. When I had a toddler in the house, my goal was 1 page a day (written during Elmo’s World on repeat). Don’t let anyone think that you’re writing too fast or too slow. And, if your circumstances change (you have more time or less time), then be sure to adjust your goals accordingly.
For more about setting writing goals, see this post by Janice Hardy.
What is your natural writing pace like? What types of goals are you setting for this year?
A Slow and Steady Writing Pace Leads to Published Books: Share on XPhoto on Foter.com
I need to look at it that way again. Or any way. A book every eighteen months is a better pace than none in four years.
And that’s true about our blogs being like diaries. I can look back (almost ten years now!) and remember what movies I’ve seen, what music I purchased, what games I’ve played – and why I enjoyed them. Plus I’ll know when a lot of movies came out since I do the monthly movie preview. It’s my own little time capsule.
I think it would be easier, for sure. I’d have a tough time jumping back into a series when I hadn’t written it for years.
Your blog would be an especially cool time machine!
Hi Elizabeth – yes it is fun to look back and for me to realise how my blog-post writing has adjusted and I’m comfortable writing – a discipline that came late in life. Slow and sure is much better than burn-out – though some people seem to get in the mode and just write … mostly men?! with women to do the housework and kids?! I don’t have a time machine like Alex – but I sure have written about a lot of subjects … the world is an amazing place – while whoever invented blogging – I’m forever grateful!
Yet – the best bit are the interactions we have with others, and those friendships that are made … cheers and have a good weekend – Hilary
I’ll admit to being those who *must* write in short spurts of time. I can’t sit down and focus on writing for more than an hour at a time (I did it in the past under a deadline, but I’m so glad I don’t have to work that way now!)
Blogging is the best! Love the online friendships. :) Hope you have a happy weekend, Hilary!
When I did my yearly wrap-up, a friend of mine wondered over how I could remember all that, but I didn’t. I scrolled through last year’s blog posts. Without that, I would’ve been lost. I know stuff happened, but specifics? Ack. It’s the same with my photo files. I keep them in date order so I can go back and see what was happening in any given month. (If I remembered to take pics, that is. LOL)
If I’m on a roll and the brain is firing on all cylinders, I can average about 1500 words an hour. But even when I’m in top writing shape, I can only write for a couple hours at a time. At my typical NaNoWriMo pace, I can finish a first draft in 6 weeks (about 60-65K). Right now, I’m out of shape, so I’m only managing every other day for about an hour at a time. And my goals for this year have already gone off the rails. None of the books I should be writing are exciting me, so I’m working on something different. Here’s hoping I can get back on track soon.
The blog posts come with the cool feature of actually tracking our activities, releases, thoughts, etc. Very cool!
I cheat with my pictures and use Amazon Prime photos. :) It notifies me every day with pictures from various years (that were taken on the same day, years ago). Really cool to see 2005 and 2006! (I wasn’t using digital photography before that).
Your current routine still sounds good because it’s so *consistent*. You’re dedicated to doing it so it’s not like days go by without your looking at your manuscript. Hope that you get back to your usual routine soon, though, and that your new project will motivate you!
That’s such an important thing to remember, Elizabeth! Each author is different, and has a different life and different pace. Finding your own pace is key, I think, to finding your voice as a writer. It makes no sense to compare yourself to what others do (other than to learn from them at times).
Good advice, and always tough to follow! Better to just find out what works well for us and stick with it. :)
That’s how I tackle editing and reading submissions. Just a few pages a day. I don’t know how my editor can go through a manuscript so thoroughly in just a few weeks. After an hour of editing, my brain fries.
I know what you mean. I think it’s the analytical nature of editing. It wears me out, too.
Life has kicked me sideways a lot over the past decade – hoping it’s reached a place where I can get serious and steady about my writing again. I love your idea of small goals and successes. I’ve been overwhelmed thinking about ‘everything’ – this will help :)
I hope things are looking up for you soon! I know it’s been really tough. There’s nothing wrong with 5 minutes a day or half a page a day–it adds up so much quicker than you’d think!
I think one way the inner critic tries to stop us from writing is by convincing us that we have to accomplish a lot in one sitting…otherwise, we shouldn’t bother.
Thanks, Elizabeth, for encouraging writers (here in this post, and in others) to write in slivers.
Over time, those slivers really do add up!
That’s a very good point. There’s an old saying we’ve probably all heard “anything that’s worth doing is worth doing well.” But that can keep us from even starting to tackle a project. Much better to do it, and poorly, and fix the thing later. :)
Hope you have a great weekend, HRD!