I’m going to hop straight into last week’s word count sheet, so you can see what happened.
| Date | | Word Count | | Weekly Word Count | | Daily Deficit | | Weekly Deficit | | Blog posts | | Total Word Count | |
| Monday, January 8, 2018 | 0 | – | – | – | 460 | 460 |
| Tuesday, January 9, 2018 | 3,290 | 3,290 | 290 | 290 | 3290 | |
| Wednesday, January 10, 2018 | 4,888 | 8,178 | (1,112) | (822) | 4888 | |
| Thursday, January 11, 2018 | 0 | 8,178 | (6,000) | (6,822) | 769 | 769 |
| Friday, January 12, 2018 | 3,316 | 11,494 | (2,684) | (9,506) | 1,326 | 4642 |
| Saturday, January 13, 2018 | 8,527 | 20,021 | 6,127 | (3,379) | 8527 | |
| Sunday, January 14, 2018 | 5,910 | 25,931 | 3,510 | 131 | 5910 |
.
I’ve highlighted Thursday, because that is the interesting day that screwed up my week.
I wrote about this in great detail in the newsletter on Sunday, but will only recap right now.
I finished plotting around 10am on Tuesday and rolled straight into writing the book. So Monday shows no word count, and Tuesday shows a teeny amount.
Wednesday was a slow day–the first few chapters of a book always are because you’re feeling your way into it. For that reason I didn’t keep writing in my spare time to catch up on what I should have written. From experience, I know the backend will zip along faster than scheduled.
Thursday was the disaster and Friday was recovering from the disaster. I had a book launch on Thursday and there were technical issues with the book’s page on my romance site. As it was launch day, I couldn’t brush it off. I had to fix it right then. I figured I would write in the afternoon instead, but the disasters compiled. I never got there.
Friday was dealing with more fall out over the same issue, customer questions, reader contact and more.
For the record, it was a very successful launch, one of my best ever. But success magnifies small issues.
As I mentioned in the newsletter (and I may run that article here on the blog in the future), the rule you should make for yourself and abide by is: Make up the time.
If life derails you, vow to make up the time,. Knock yourself out to do whatever it takes to catch up on your word count.
Then the only excuses that will stop you writing are truly needful ones. If you’re just trying to blow off your writing with some highly creative procrastination, the idea of having to make up that time will stop you.
Because, I kid you not, making up that time is a frigging pain in the ass. It’s bloody hard work, that you really don’t want to put yourself through just so you can water petunias.
On Friday, I took stock of the damage and drew up a writing plan that I executed over the weekend. Basically, I put my ass in the chair and didn’t stop until I had reached my word count for the week.
As you can see by the blue figure in the chart, I made word count by the skin of my teeth (and immediately stopped and went and watched TV. Down time is important, too).
The lesson I learned this week (you’re always learning something new about how slippery your mind can be and how productivity really works), is that I must reach word count every single day. No “oh, I’ll catch up later in the week” wave-offs. If I had made word count on Wednesday, then the marathon on the weekend wouldn’t have been as extreme. In fact I’ve only realized this, as I write this post.
However, I’m caught up, and move forward knowing I’ve lost no major ground. But it was hard work, as I mentioned, all because I lost five hours in one day.
Nothing will encourage you to stick to your daily writing habit like forcing yourself to catch up.
Back to work, all of us.
t.