Lessons from Write Nonfiction In November – Days 2, 3, 4 and 5

My first lesson from Write Nonfiction in November is to do the writing before doing bookkeeping work for my notary business and before visiting the so-depressing hospital. It is hard to write when you are tired and the creativity is wiped out by being down. This just means I have more writing to do tomorrow.

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My second lesson from WNFIN is that fear lies behind and underneath much of my procrastination. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of being found out as a fake, fear of just not being good enough, and several others who have not yet introduced themselves and given me their names (but I can feel them jostling around just beyond those named).

As others have written, everything worthwhile is on the other side of fear. I will not let fear keep me from reaching my goals. I will complete the first draft of this book this month.

Progress for today: bought Scrivener (converted the trial version I have been using into paid version after downloading the newest update). My current word count on the book is 23,395. So, if I am shooting for 50,000 words, I have 26,605 left to go, or roughly 950 words per day every day from now to the end of the month. I want to write 1,200 words per day to have some extra that can be removed at the end. This is do-able.

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Day 3’s progress:

I started the month with 23,395 words already in my book. My goal is to have at least 50K by the time I stop, so I need at least 950 words a day every day between now and the end of the month. I have set a goal of 1,200 words per day to have some cushion.

I just stopped for today and Scrivener tells me my project document is now 25,277 words, so that means I added 1,882 words to it today.

Yep, that feels really good to hit the daily goal — and sail right past it.

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Day 4

Third lesson is that time spent moving notes from an app on my phone to Evernote so they will show up on my desktop where they can be copied, in other words, time spent on gathering notes into the place where they are most needed, does not count as writing.

Like bookkeeping for my notary business, this work is necessary, but it is not the part of the business that converts my time into something tangible such as revenue.

Also, vacuuming the house and doing laundry (which I did today) are essential chores — not procrastination, but they don’t count as writing, either.

Only writing counts as writing.

Even so, I am glad to have that item from my plan (transferring notes from the Reminder app) checked off as Done.

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Day Five’s lesson is that you can write a bunch if you do it first. Total words added to the project today was  2,127.  Daily goal for today passed and the extra was almost enough to make up for not adding any words yesterday.  Total of 4,009 words added so far this month.   Project Total now stands at 27,404. Told more people whom I respect about writing my book this month as a way to hold myself accountable.

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