#6 Prolifica, Week 1 Reflections

Earlier this week, I committed to a new writing experiment.

I set some ambitious goals for myself, including three hours of writing a day, with plenty of published output: a short post once a day, and then a longer essay and a short story by the end of the week.

Non-fiction

From the non-fiction side, this week was a success. This post marks the last short post of the week, fulfilling my quota there. I have a long essay that I’ll publish today as well.

I really enjoyed making the shorter posts. They’re far from brilliant works, but it was nice to complete something each day. What made them feel a bit empty was that I didn’t have a ton of time for research. Writing a post generally took up the time allotted to it, so I had to stick to subjects I knew pretty well.

Writing the longer essay was interesting, but didn’t feel super impactful. I think I’ll drop that this next week, though I may return to it in the future.

This next week will be a short week for me, as I have a trip starting on Thursday evening. As such, here are my non-fiction goals for Monday-Thursday.

• publish one short post per day: 250-1000 words

• spend two hours on the post per day: one hour for research, half an hour for the rough draft, half an hour for revising

Fiction

For fiction, it’s a mixed success. I spent the first few days of the week starting on one short story, writing about 3000 words there. On Thursday, in a fit of inspiration, I started a different story, and completed about 2000 words of it… but it’s far from finished.

My tendency to switch projects has always hampered my creative writing. I’m very susceptible to thinking the next project will be the project, which means I rarely finish anything.

Yet there’s some wisdom to it. The second short story I worked on was a lot more interesting, and I’m proud of it so far. It seems like it would have been a loss if I forced myself to not work on it, and instead stick with the first story… even if I was more likely to end up with a completed project in the latter case.

Ultimately, my primary focus with my writing routine is joy. I want to love the writing process, and if that means switching projects and completing nothing, so be it.

My goals for next week:

• write & type up 4000 words in total

• spend one hour per day on writing, half an hour on typing

Wrapping up

Last week I said that if I didn’t achieve my writing goals I’d donate $500 to charity. The only place I differed from my promised output was in failing to complete a short story, though I did hit the promised word count.

I’m going to call that “close enough.” My intention with these writing goals is to not be a rigid taskmaster towards myself, but rather a benevolent manager. That means a little room for forgiveness, as long as the effort was there.

For this next week, I’ll once again commit to the stakes of giving away $500 if I fail to come close to my promised goals