The Good Patrons of 750 Words

40 cups

Today’s a banner day! After several false starts, I finally managed an uninterrupted year of writing every day and hit the million word mark to boot.

I’m lousy at routines. Terrible. So for me to manage to do anything every single day for a full year is pretty close to unprecedented. But I can tell the effect. With my family situation the way it is, it’s tough sometimes to have the time to really sit down and concentrate. In the past, that’s meant I’ve let days and weeks slip by without writing at all, and when I finally got the chance, I was rusty and wasted yet more time trying to feel fluent again.

2015 was not a kind writing production year, but despite that, thanks to 750words, I haven’t felt that rustiness. Maybe I haven’t produced what I’ve wanted to produce, but I’ve produced something. Like any kind of physical workout, simply getting some writing done and working that part of my brain is far more beneficial than being inactive.

But what I DIDN’T expect was the million word mark. I save 750words largely for the bits and pieces of various scenes that come to me plus notes of things I’ve seen here and there that have to do with whatever fic I’m writing. What I never stopped to calculate was how MUCH I was actually writing. Maybe it’s not a coherent whole, but it’s still far more than I dreamed I was generating.

And I have to say, the monthly challenges, the badges and the idea of not breaking a streak has really made a difference for me as much as having the venue to sit down and simply let the words flow. I’m a procrastinator by nature, and while I love my writing, I tend to put it off because my inclination is to put the things that ‘need’ to get done first. Adding the weight of a challenge and a goal, however small earning a badge is, has forced me to make something I love — and not only what others need — as a priority. And I have needed that.

So thank you, 750words! I’m off for 500 and who knows…maybe one day there’ll be a 2 million badge to earn, too. :)