The Fast Draft Experience

I have just completed day five of Candice Haven's Fast Draft writing workshop. For those who are considering jumping in on this program the next time it is offered, I highly recommend it. Perhaps you don't need help in all of these things, but this is what Fast Draft has taught me so far:

• how to make time for writing every single day
• how to balance my writing life with my real life
• how to shut down my internal editor during the creative process
• how to stay positive about my writing even when things get sticky
• how to write 100 pages worth of a first draft in five days

Each day I have pulled one or two of these lessons out of my day's work. Each day I am learning something new. I have not been perfect and all of these lessons learned haven't solidified into habits yet, but I am confident with the support I am receiving in our Yahoo group, from Candy and from the #fastdraft team on twitter that after two weeks of this that is very possible.

Each day, except for today, I set a goal of writing 20 pages per day. Today I set a goal of writing 22 pages, here's how my days worked out:

Day 1: 23 pages

Day 2: 21 pages

Day 3: 21 pages

Day 4: 13 pages

Day 5: 22 pages

As you can see, I did not hit my goal yesterday. When I was so far below the mark, my husband came up with the idea of setting today's goal to 22 pages so that, by today, I would at least have an average of 20 pages per day.

So what happened yesterday? I got BLOGGED DOWN.

On Monday, I thought I was pretty awesome because I managed to reach my Fast Draft goal, write a blog post for this blog and write a pretty awesome article for Word of the Nerd. On Tuesday, I thought I had mastered life based on Monday's success, so I decided to 1. wake up late, 2. take forever writing the top 10 post for this blog, and 3. accept another mega article for Word of the Nerd (at least I told them I wouldn't finish it until today). It was all wrong. I was all wrong, and I paid for it.

I spent a whole bunch of my creative energies on my blogging this week, and I enjoyed it, but my novels suffered for it. I could have delved deeper into the story I'm building right now and I could have edited more pages of the novel I have already completed (I have done no editing on that work since the weekend!).

And, so I don't feel like it was all for naught, here are the two articles I wrote for Word of the Nerd this week:

Will Robin Feature in The Dark Knight Rises?

&

Astonishing X-Men #51 vs The Florida Family Association

My question to my fellow writer/bloggers:  

How do you balance the two joys? I have scheduled blog posts in the past when I knew I would be doing a lot of writing (ie. NaNoWriMo), however, if I commit to writing every single day that is not a realistic option. It is also unrealistic if I want to continue to write for other sites, like Word of the Nerd who have time sensitive articles that must be written. Any suggestions are welcome!

*REMINDER*

THURSDAY IS THE LAST DAY FOR THIS WEEK'S YA BOOK GIVEAWAY:

AN ADVANCED READER COPY OF THIS FALL'S

SKINNY BY DONNA COONER