Your Productivity Sucks

Well, here we are, heading toward the stretch. Check your word counts. Are you blasting into space or are you still circling the planet?

Guess what? You’re fine. No really, YOU ARE FINE. You’re doing what you can. You’ve written more this month than you did last month. It’s all a matter of perspective. Now here’s the deal: it’s time to get busier. No matter how much you’ve been writing, it’s time to do MORE. We are nine days from completion. You can do anything for nine days. If you’ve produced only 5000 words, well, add another 5000 this week. This nine days is going to pass anyway. You might as well work your little tail off. So what if it’s Thanksgiving and you live in the USA? Explain your situation, sequester yourself in the bedroom with some leftover turkey and go to town.

You see, its not just about the total count, it’s about staying true to your dream. With your blathering, wailing, and head smacking, you join the ranks of all other National Book Award winning best-selling (they don’t always go together) novelists. Don’t you think they’ve slapped themselves silly more than once? Of course they have. A lot of them drink themselves silly as well.

Hey, I am so so behind in my word count. Oy. But today I start fresh with no mistakes. Today I write 4K. Then I’ll do a few pushups, gulp a Diet Coke, and start typing. Okay, maybe not the pushups.

Today, you will write more than you have in the past. We all will. Because we are writers. It’s what we do and a we’re a little nuts.

Dawn-the-Writer

I’m 12000 words behind. I have good reasons. My monitor died which made it impossible to use the Dragon software effectively. I spent five days in Fargo. Got sick. I just returned home. Still sick. A windstorm took out our power for ten hours. I hate the book I’m writing. My hair looks bad. Must toss old writing strategy. Bad strategy. Strategy not working. New strategy:

write at a specific time every morning. 9:30 AM, 3K words a day until I catch up.

Sing my theme song:
Just what made that little black ant,
think she could move a rubber tree plant.
Everyone knows an ant can’t, move a rubber tree plant.
But she’s got High Hopes, She’s got…

OK, I’ll drop the theme song.

Dawn

I often use two-word comebacks against the nasty commentary that my Inner Critic hurls at me. If I say more than two words, I’m validating the comment with too much attention. Better to just slap it away.

IC: You can’t write.
ME: Big Deal.
IC: You need an outline.
ME: So What.
IC: This book idea sucks.
ME: Who Cares?

Those are three of my most common two-word responses. I have a few others that I use less often when the Inner Critic is more ….uh… unpleasant.

Regarding NaNoWriMo, after a very slow start I’m finally catching up. I need to get ahead of the game because of weekend travel plans. I”m going to Fargo. Yes, Fargo. As in North Dakota.

IC: You’ll never catch up.
ME: Your Mother.

Dawn

I’m writing with a great concept and little else. When I started, I felt completely lost. You’re an idiot, said my Inner Critic. Structure a decent outline. Write from your plot points. Like you did last year.

Did my book sell last year? No. Did the agents and publishers swoon over my pitch? No. So why should I do what I did?

Thus, I have made the decision to plunge into the void. What the heck, it’s month out of my life. If it doesn’t work, I haven’t lost much.

NO OUTLINE NO PROBLEM.

Gulp.