My goal is to write every day.
In my formative days, I always had a goal of a thousand words per day: four pages, or so. Doesn't seem like much, but that pace would produce 365,000 words a year--the equivalent of three or four novels.
I have come nowhere near meeting that goal for what seems like ages, ever since I finally decided to break down and go to college.
Almost five years ago, I began the pursuit of a master's degree in library science. I went on to earn an associate's and then a bachelor's in elementary education. Presently, I am about to finish my second semester of graduate work toward the long-sought degree in Library and Information Technologies.
For all that ceaseless while, almost every word I've written has been for school work.
Nevertheless, I have not completely abandoned my prose and poetry. Even if only a single sentence or verse, I have succeeded in writing each and every day.
I suppose that whatever I endeavour, I do try to devote myself.
One of the strategies I have employed in order to keep writing no matter what is to have a string of seasonal stories and poems that I keep in the drawer, pulling each one out as its season rolls around. I have a Christmas story that I've worked on every December for a few years. I have a Lammas piece that I work on each August. I also have a verse with which I continue every February. Working in such a way, indeed, I battle against fits and starts. Yet, each piece demands its season and so compels me to to write on it. In the last few years I have completed writing on an Easter story and a tale of Hallowe'en. Thus, I have been accomplishing progress.
Just the other day, I pulled out my Beltane pieces. I have a poem and story involving Walpurgis Night--April 30th to the 1st of May--which I have been working on for the last few Spring seasons. Looking them over, I was immediately excited to return to them. I might be able to come close to finishing the first drafts this year--after starting on them years ago--even if I work on them only a little bit each day for the next couple weeks. That is, if I can get my school work done and over with for the semester.
Anyhow, I am aware of writers that plunge themselves to the hilt into whatever piece they are writing until it is done. I was that same way once. Writing on a story or a poem and then putting it away for most of a year might seem like a maddeningly slow way to go, terribly inefficient, even lackadaisical. Still, it is the best way I have found these last few years--during which I have also been drawn away from my focus on writing by more than just school work--to keep myself writing each and every day.
I would be interested to hear what other writers think of such a method.
Still, even if as cold molasses, the ink keeps flowing.
