New Month, New Goal

At the beginning of March, I am re-evaluating my word goals. I failed to reach my set number of words for both January and February. I completed 41% of my goal in January and 54% in February. I find myself analyzing the charts and my schedule to decide if I have set my goal too high. It might very well be unreachable.

By using the excel sheet to calculate my progress, I find myself motivated to keep writing because I want to beat last month’s number. I LOVE counting how many days in a row I successfully lengthened my writing experience. The charts and average word counts entice me to continue the trend toward full time writing. My vote for continuation of the excel sheet falls under affirmative. I spent my adolescence at the beginning of the video game era where little beeps and flags at the tops of poles told me I succeeded. Apparently, I have not grown out of that. Without a deadline from a publisher breathing down my throat, the prospect of beating my highest score, or word count, keeps me driven.

Since I did increase my words by 13%, I think I will leave my word count goal alone for now. If I start to get frustrated because I am completely unable to meet the demand, I might need to modify. My average count in January was 323 words a day with February a whole 427. If I am to reach my word count goal for the year, I will need to increase that number to 869. Numbers, numbers, so many numbers.

Quite frankly, with everything else going on in my life, it’s probably a miracle I have any time at all to write. Sometimes, I feel like I live in Wonderland. Which leads me to my pick of the blog: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Alice travels through this odd, or peculiar as she would say, landscape without having time to stop and digest anything she sees or hears. The young girl seems to move from one location and character to the next without having any control of her circumstances. Yet, she is able to make the transitions and deal with the stress much better than I can. Maybe we Americans could learn a bit from Alice or maybe we’ll all die of a heart attack before we’re able to let go. Excuse me, I think I’ll sit up here with this caterpillar for a little while.

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