It is worth remembering from time to time that what I’m aiming for is long term sustainable writing. I want to do this for the rest of my life… wake up, eat breakfast, exercise, write, and then at some point eat dinner and go to bed. More or less just that, forever.
I love writing. It brings me great joy and great sorrow, it’s enormously relaxing and incredibly stressful. It makes me examine things I never thought I’d examine (for example, in the last two weeks I have studied the layout and manifest of the “HMCS Haida”, a Canadian WW2 destroyer ship, at least a dozen times… I still don’t know what the majority of the crew on a ship like that actually do.
But at the same time I have to be very careful not to push myself too hard. The drive to write at all times, to consume every waking moment with writing, is strong, because I’m not making a living at this yet. At the rate I’m going, it’s going to be another 4-5 years before I do… and if I want to keep doing this for 4-5 years, or 40-50 years more likely, then I have to remember that it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.
Anyway. All this to say that I’m not where I want my word count to be by a long shot, but I’m going to be much better by the end of the day (and even better than that by the end of tomorrow), so I’m not going to worry about it. I’m going to focus on doing the best work I can, the best writing I can, and try not to stress too much about the little details. I’ll let you all know how that goes.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!