No Mean Feat

I gave myself a pat on the back. I did it. But, now comes the hard part.

I have finished the first draft of my fourth book, which is the first novel I have written. I do not feel shy in confessing that the previous three writing pieces were the trials and working on this fiction series was indeed something.

I had set up a target for myself that I will ink in one lac word for this fiction so that it can qualify as a novel. The target made me cringe, and I was nervous about whether I will achieve the word count. Sometimes, it sounds superficial when writers talk and boast about word count, but trust me, achieving a certain daily count gives a kick in this solo journey.

Days passed by, taking the shape of months, and I made sure that before I write and when I finish the daily target, I have a look at the word tracker. Initially, it seemed like a daunting task, but as the journey progressed, I started feeling positive that I will touch the finishing line. There were days when I could not write because of other commitments or family emergencies. I did not dishearten myself or was extremely harsh on myself in not writing every single day. Life is not linear. If on a day, I could only type ten words, but then there were magical days where even 3000 words seemed like a cakewalk. I punched in the air, when I saw the total word count go beyond one lac. This feat taught me two important lessons:

• Have stretch goals. Think BIG!!

• Keep on working with an eye towards your end goal. Monitor it, track it and keep on beating yourself at your own game.

What I saw worked for me was averaging out 1000 words a day, and if you do it for 100 days, you have 1lac words in your kitty! And now comes the most hard part, editing. For around 60k word count, it took me roughly around 20 days. I will check now that when I am editing the entire piece in one go, how much time it takes. Of course, I cannot do that on one stretch.

Do you keep a daily writing target?