Word Counts and Deadlines

I used to be one of those writers who didn't believe in word counts. I would just write when the mood struck, and if it didn't... oh well. But once I got my first novel out there and people started asking when the second was coming out, then I had to buckle down and actually put myself on a schedule. Word counts. Deadlines. Publication dates.

Ugh.

I still write when the mood strikes me, but I now have to hit that word count every day. My daily goal is 2,000 words. Whether that's in one sitting or spread out through the day, it doesn't matter. And no, blogging doesn't count. And it doesn't have to be 2,000 words all in one project either. Although it's hard for me to work on one original fiction at a time. So I usually finish one project and send it off to the readers before I start work on another.

And then I have deadlines. For example, the novel that's off to the readers now has a publication date of June 2014. The one I'm writing now, then, has a first draft deadline of about the same time. Of course, I'll step away from it when I get the notes back from the readers on The Fire's Princess.

Self imposed deadlines, all of them. I can only imagine what it would look like if I had a real publisher.