Monday, July 20, 2015

Unlock the secret to increasing your daily word count



Update from the Land of Hodge
As I turn the corner towards the end of my epically long grandparent tour vacation, I am also turning the corner on edits for Blue Season. In the next week my editing of Blue Season will enter Phase II, Copy Edit. I am anticipating Phase III will occur at the end of August so that I can stay on track for my September 20th release date.

August 5   - Cover reveal for Seasons
August 20 - Cover reveal for Blue Season
                  - Kindle Count Down Deal

Unlock the Secret to increasing your daily word Count: 
As I mentioned in an earlier post, "Creative Writing on a Busy Mom's Schedule" I have to make the best out of the little time I have each day to write. I have found that for me to be successful I need some accountability. What are some of the ways I have implemented accountability into my writing routine?

1). Write-ins with other writers. 
2). Competitions with other writers to complete projects.
3) Word sprints with other writers. 

The last one, word sprints has been the most successful way for me to increase my word count and stay on schedule. What are word sprints? Sprints are short timed writing sessions where writers try to write as many words as possible in a designated set time.

When I first started to do word sprints I did hour sprints where a group of writers and I would check in every hour to see how many words we had managed to write. I would generally be able to write between 750-1500 words depending on how distracted I had gotten during that hour. About a month ago I got invited into a sprinting group that did 15 minute sprints with a five minute break in between. During those 15 minutes I would write between 350-1000 words.

Yes, you read that right. I did better in the 15 minute sprints. Why, you might ask. Well during these 15 minute sprints I felt more under the gun and was less likely to wander onto Facebook or Twitter or do something else. If you are easily distracted this is definitely the way to go. I haven't been doing a lot of book writing during these sprints but have used the accountability to achieve other tasks like imputing edit suggestions and writing blog post, like this one.


What are some tips and tricks that you have found to keep you on task for a project? 



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KM Hodge is the author of The Syndicate Series. Book #1, Seasons is available on Amazon. 

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