#because half of the shit i want to write is random tangents with deep history to explain context

[call-me-medusa]

So, like, I knew that Stephen King said to write 1,000 words per day for consistency so that your fictional world never runs away from you. And I used to think that level of discipline would never be something for me, especially as someone who has been in school or working or both for a long time.

I have done NaNo multiple times in the past but that always felt like a little too much, and I really do not do well on keeping up the same number of words. Some days I would get 4,000 and sometimes I'd get 600. I won three out my four attempts of NaNo, so I can't say that it doesn't work to having a completed manuscript, but I also have to say that I was successful sometimes because of the amount of planning and preparation I did before November.

But, I started working on the Silena fic™ since February 13th, but I didn't start actively writing 1,000 words per day until about 10 days later on February 23rd. I noticed how much progress I'm able to make writing just 1,000 words a day, even if it is just exactly 1,000 words and stepping away.

Some days I have the energy to write a lot. I wrote 4,755 words on March 9th. Some days I don't have the energy to write a lot, and then I just barely write 1,000 words and I shove my laptop away because I don't want to look at it again. But the most surprising thing I found was on the days that I had the energy to write more, but I wrote 1,000 words then stopped.

On those days, I felt like I wasn't working myself hard enough and that I wasn't doing everything that I could. To be fair, I wasn't. I was doing the bare minimum of what I could do. But, I found that when I had the energy to write an extra, say, 100 words, or 500 words but I didn't, I would think about what's going to happen next in my story and then I would get excited for the next day to write.

Something else I thought of is that during NaNo I usually am like chained to a table with my laptop until I'm finished with the day's word count, but I haven't felt this way at all with the measly goal of 1,000 a day. Like, most of the time if I have a free hour at work I'm able to get them all done, then I feel like I have a completely free afternoon from work. Or I spend an hour or two at the public library after my work day (I work a typical 8-4:30) and I crank out my words. (Not to mention that now I'm a local fixture of the public library which helps me feel more in tune with my community).

I have felt so much pride in my self-discipline in this past month writing at minimum 1,000 words per day. Some days I write more if I want, but some days I want and I hold off. But sometimes I take that writing energy and I use it other places, like when I wrote 1,400 for the Silena fic™, then wrote 4,025 words for About You (the jasico fic).

I think that even after I finish this fic, I'll keep up this 1,000 words a day. I don't know how, but I think that it'll be so beneficial to me. I hate that Stephen King was right.