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Last month I mentioned a writing accountability group I belong to. Recently, one of our members, Christian SF author Terri Main, in an attempt to help people cope with large goals, proposed a “ten words a day” club.
Her point is that even if you don’t have time to write a whole scene, you can take a minute or two and add one sentence to your work in progress.
She is on to something.
Ten words a day for a month, not counting Sundays, is 260 words. In twelve months, that’s 3,120 words. A good chapter or two.
Now, in practice most of us get rolling once the first sentence is out, and wind up with several hundred words. But even days when the number is in fact ten are worth recognizing, because that’s ten words we didn’t have before.
The importance of small wins has been studied in the realms of social work and business, but it applies in creative work, too. Every step of progress toward one’s goal is important. Celebrate those steps.
[...] Novel Track, as I mentioned once before, the brilliant Terri Main came up with a great idea: Ten words a day. Most Novel Trackers set a monthly goal of 10,000 words or more. That requires writing more than [...]