This week, I decided to try something a little crazy. My husband was going to be out of town Monday and Tuesday, and my kids go to bed early, so I’d have my evenings to myself. What’s my favorite thing to do when that happens? Write with reckless abandon, of course.

And so I decided to go full force on the reckless abandon part. I decided to challenge myself: could I write a novella in two days? I’ve written novels in two weeks, but this would be pushing it—averaging 9,000 words a day, nearly double my usual “Fast Draft” method.

The short answer: no. When my husband got home late last night, I called it quits to spend time with him. But when I finished last night, I had 16,000 shiny new words. From two days of work.

I gotta do this every week!

The biggest lesson I saw from this was the importance of goal setting. On Monday, I set a goal of 8000 words (I had to take time for grocery shopping and finishing up book blast things). I stayed up way too late, but I met that goal while running a household with four little kids by myself. (I even did my own dishes!)

Tuesday, I had to swing for the fences. I set a goal of 10,000 words. Ten. Thousand. By midnight, I had written 8000 words.

I didn’t meet my goal—I fell short by about 2000 words. But, I figured, after two days of a jabillion words, I could knock that out in the morning, right?

Uh yeah. It took until 10 PM to get those last words, and not because the story was tough or I didn’t know what came next. I knew exactly what was supposed to happen. But apparently writing abhors a vacuum, and having so little pressure on myself to get the words . . . I didn’t.

So to borrow the cliché, swing for the fences. You might not write 10,000 words in a day—but you’ll geta heck of a lot farther than if you’re only aiming for first base.

(And yes, this is why there’s no post on subplots today. Next time!)

What do you think? How do your goals affect your outcome?

Photo by Katie Krueger