The Good Patrons of 750 Words

1 cup

If this is your first day, welcome to the 750 words site. Please take time to read through this whole message. There are tips you can use. You can succeed way beyond your expectations.

Today is my Phoenix day, 100 straight days of writing. Got as far as 71 before, and fell asleep before I did my evening writing. So discouraged I stopped for 2 weeks and pouted. But then I picked myself up and started again. Today I have EARNED that badge.

The task was something I would never have dreamed I would stick with for so long. I’ve hand-written morning page several times years ago. I kept it up for prolonged periods, but never every day and never counted words. Three pages, no word count.

Since I started a little over a year ago, I’ve also accumulated 212,000 words. That’s 212 thou and counting. That’s enough nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs to flesh out the first draft of two books. Me, a potential author. Who woulda thought? In 28 more days, I’ll have earned another badge as I complete 250,000.

Here are some takeaways. If I can do it, so can you. There are plenty of early pages that weren’t pretty. Sometimes to get in my words, I typed gibberish. Hey, a word’s a word. But as I kept it up, I gradually recognized a flow in my words and surrendered to it. I got out of its way and just went along for the ride, getting it down. Words and images came from …somewhere. They often just appeared on the screen. I’d glance down at the right hand corner and be amazed at how many words had clustered on the page.

Wordplay got to be a game. I toyed with my spelling and grammar, making up things that were, perhaps, only understood by me. The images the Maker shared with me morphed into two of the best things I’ve ever written. It wasn’t me, honest. The spirit was channeling through me. I was just getting it down as it flowed past.

I learned to write at least a few words at the first of the day. If I got 200 down early, I was a lot more motivated to finish by the end of the day. Got me past my tendency to delay that last dash as midnight loomed. I would say, “Well. I’ve already done 200. Only 550 left to go.”

I played lots of mental tricks. Found myself fixating on word count. Looking at the right bottom corner was slowing me down. Instead of saying I had to ACCUMULATE 750 words, I changed the script to “I only have 750 words that I can SPEND today.” Rather than considering words as precious objects to shove into a pile, the object became pushing the pile away.

I’ll see you again in 29 days. I’ll have another badge and more ideas to share. IF I CAN DO IT, SO CAN YOU! Good luck. This was my first 484 words tonight. All words count.