Motivation and Accomplishment

I only wrote something like 12 pages on Monday and 17 pages on Tuesday. I set a goal for 150 pages written this week, and I’m behind. I need to write, oh, 40 pages today to get back on track.

Editing, however, is doing much better. I only have to edit 10 pages a day to meet the goal, and that I have done.

The incentive for editing 10 pages a day is that I don’t have to cook if I do. Fahim’s goal for me.

See, Fahim thinks that I’ve written enough new stuff already, but haven’t worked on editing it. I just like to write new new new new new. I don’t like to edit. He’s right, I don’t. Editing is hard work. It’s time consuming, and it’s a slog. But if I don’t edit, I’ll never get published. And being published is the goal. So he wants me to edit.

This BIW, I told him I wanted to write. I need to write something new, I said. Fine, but if I want to get packets instead of cooking, then I’ll have to edit 10 pages a day. That’s fair, so I agreed. Well, if I don’t agree, I have to cook. Them’s the breaks.

But then, after I started BIW, Fahim also decided that, if I want to get the packets every day, I’m also going to have to write at least 20 pages a day. Okay.

Well, considering that I want to write at least 30 pages a day, this is not a total hardship. It helps me stay accountable and on track. And I appreciate his encouragement. It helps me reach my goals. I sooo appreciate him for this.

Monday, I didn’t meet the 20 pages written for the day, so I had to make it up on Tuesday. But Tuesday, I didn’t make it, either, so today, I have to make it up, too. Gotta have the 10 pages edited and the pages from yesterday and Monday caught up before I can get packets. And then, by the end of the day, I’ll have to have today’s pages done to get packets tomorrow. Confusing?

Only to you.

I know exactly what’s going on.

It’s true, I sometimes need the kick in the butt to keep me going, and dh provides it very well. No chocolate incentives this time, but I shouldn’t be eating too much chocolate anyway, so also not a huge hardship.

I know that I’m capable of writing huge hordes of pages in a day. I’ve done 65. I know that 30 shouldn’t be too difficult. I just have to be prepared, be in communication with my inner muse, and get going.

So I’ll do that before I go any further with my writing or editing this morning.

The novel I’m working on is turning out completely different than I thought it would. The first scene was much darker, and subsequently, the main character is also completely different than I thought he’d be. First of all, I didn’t realize until I wrote that opening scene that it would be a male. I hadn’t decided on a female, I hadn’t decided on anything. It just came out male.

And then he comes out with all sorts of tricks up his sleeve. All sorts of secrets in his past, things he’s running away from. I had no idea it’d be like that. It just happened. I think my inner muse has some ideas on this that I wasn’t the least bit aware of. How very interesting.

Even the names for the main characters are a surprise to me. Hmm. I wonder if anyone else will pick up on the symbology here? I have a lot, and that’s something else I wasn’t aware of until I started working on it. More that I really had no conscious control over. And I have to wonder what else is going to show up. Well, let it.

I’m curious to see what else my inner muse has in store for this story. Surprise me, inner muse. I welcome it.