Writing Again

Every year on New Year's Day, I make at least a few wild resolutions that even I know I won't be able to keep. And, usually, by Day Two of the year, I've broken at least one of them. It's gone beyond a tradition into a sort of running joke.

This year, I sat around on New Year's Eve and really thought about what I wanted to do in 2014. One of the things I realized at this time was that I haven't really written much in the past few months. Actually, I didn't really write that much last year. I published a few things, but I didn't write them in 2013. Third-Person Hero (Scribings, Vol 3) was written in November 2012. Netmare (Terran Shift Anthology Vol 2) was first written in about 2009, based on an idea I had in the mid-90s. The Museum Run (also in Terran Shift Anthology 2) was first written when I was in college, around 2000, and heavily revised in 2010 and 2012. As for new material? I wrote the first draft of one story, for Scribings Volume 4, and that was only about 1,800 words.

So that's the first thing I wanted to change in my life for 2014. I have been experimenting with my own personal motivation methods. For a long time, I've tried to force myself to sit down and write for two hours every morning. The results... well, like I said, I didn't write much of any new material in 2013. So my first resolution for 2014 was something that I hoped would be simpler than trying to force myself to type for two hours:

Write 2,014 words a day.

Considering the speed I think and type at, I figured this would take roughly 45 minutes. So how's that been working out for me? On the first day of the new year, I wrote 3,173 words. The second day yielded 3,102. The third day came in at a whopping 12,662 words. In fact, on days 1 through 6 of this year, I wrote the first draft of a 42,000 word novella. And today, I resumed work on Fireteam Zulu 2. I figure that even if I only write 2,014 words a day, I should be able to write a novel a month. I'm hoping to get all these novels floating around inside my head (currently about a dozen of them) into words on my computer, so I can edit and publish them and clear my mind for other projects. Plus I really like writing and publishing, and hope that you enjoy reading the stories I create.

Are you a writer? What's your plan?