250 Words a Day

I’ve been listening to Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing podcast where in several episodes she talks about getting your writing done no matter what and about setting manageable goals (she also talks about the Magic Spreadsheet but that’s material for a different post). One such goal is to write every day, but set the minimum at only 250 words. Life always seems to intervene, especially when one tries to juggle writing with a full-time job, family and personal needs such as exercise, but we can usually find time to get 250 words on the page.
Last week I decided that this should be manageable and that even at such a slow pace that’s still a chapter or so in 2 weeks. Every little bit counts, right? Right. Anyway, that was the beginning of the week and I was feeling optimistic. Too bad I didn’t take into account the husband and his mighty persuasion skills in the form of sad-face combined with the general human tendency toward laziness and procrastination. Or maybe that’s just me… Ahem. Long story and a few episodes of World Without End later on Sunday I found myself feeling guilty because I didn’t do any writing for almost a week. Bad, bad Olga. So I sat down in the quiet house (husband went to help a friend with a car) and dedicated 2 hours to writing. Could’ve been longer but that’s when husband got home and started barging into the office and talking to me. It’s so hard to say No when they actually want to hang out with you, isn’t it?
So let this sad tale be a lesson to you, and to me: even 250 words a day require dedication and a backbone, because you’re going to have to say No to doing other things all the time. I’m going to go practice resisting sad-face now.