Project fail!

[owlmoose]

*Looks at calendar, looks at goals for meta writing, mourns*

I think it's safe to say that meta!December isn't happening for me this time around -- first it was work, then an evil cold, then fic bunnies, then work again, not to mention my DA2 replay and the two Dragon Age holiday exchanges I signed up for. (I have a complete draft for one. The other is kind of sort of not really even started yet.) Maybe January will be a better time.

I also need to decide whether or not to sign up for getyourwordsout again, and if so, whether to stick to the 150k level or go back to 200k. I did 200k in 2010 and managed it fairly easily, but only because my megaflare_ff story was almost 60 thousand words. This year, I blew past 150k before the end of October, but unless something quite unexpected happens in the next two weeks, I'm not hitting 200k this year. Then again, if I'd had a higher goal in front of me, maybe I would have finished more stories, or blogged more, or written more meta. On the third hand, maybe I don't need to sign up at all -- maybe having my monthly goals is enough to motivate me now. I never really cared all that much about the word count; I signed up for the challenge mostly to impose a structure and accountability on my writing goals. Do I still need that? Will I get lazy without it? I have until December 31st to decide...

Comments

[sarasa_cat]

My meta'ing is definitely spilling into next month. Life is busy and far too much meta wants to be written. ;)

I might give getyourwordsout a try this year. I've thought about it in the past but never got my act together to plan and join. I've noticed that when I need to report monthly word counts, I am much more likely to beat back my laziness.

"or blogged more" -- did you count all of your posts to DW or only blog posts that have feel like articles/info for the public?

[owlmoose]

The latter -- only posts that I felt were substantial. Which I know is a fairly subjective/arbitrary measure. This post, for example, doesn't count, but anything I write for the meta project would, regardless of length.

[sarasa_cat]

While subjective, it makes sense. I've posted quite a few Serious Thoughts About Writing posts that, even if kept under friends lock, required a lot of my thought, sparked interesting discussion, and left me with useful ideas. I've never thought about counting them toward my monthly or annual writing totals but now I'm starting to think otherwise.

[stealth_noodle]

Every vague writing goal I had exploded along with November and then December. :/ In January I really ought to set firmer goals (with actual numbers!), because without structure, I don't push myself as hard as I should.

getyourwordsout looks like it might be almost too structured for me (and I almost never dust off my LJ), but hmm. Are the posts over there mostly check-ins, or is there other content?

[owlmoose]

Last year there was more content (discussions about writing and such), but this year it's mostly been check-ins and monthly word war sessions (which I've never participated in). I don't know if they're planning more community participation this year or not.

I agree about goals with numbers. For myself, I am more likely to set days written goals than specific numbers, but I wonder how I would do if the counts went away entirely, or i tried to pick them myself. I have to admit, it's handy to have these pre-packaged goal sets.

[stealth_noodle]

This is good to know, thanks! I'll probably forego the comm (next year may or may not be the year I begin subjecting myself to more grad school, which would require some hasty revision of my writing goals), but I'm definitely going to try their numbers on for size.