Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Has it Really Been a Month?

Apparently. Since my last post was on September 29th. Time flies.
I am sorry that I have been neglecting all of you, my dear readers. I've really been struggling with my writing lately and I've even broke my own rule of "just write something." Until last weekend (or was it the weekend before...yes, that's it), I hadn't opened my laptop in two months. Ouch.

But for whatever reason, the muse descended and I totally eschewed all of my research on real life historical characters in favor of Rebellion. I wrote twenty pages in two days. And then promptly put away said laptop again. I hate when that happens.
So I've been mulling over the last few days--how many writers set daily goals for themselves? I've never been one to adhere to a strict schedule because I always found that it limited my creativity. When I'm not in the mood to write, the result is pretty terrible. And so I've always been afraid to make myself write. But given that I'm doing one more edit of The Enemy Within (now entitled Rebel Heart) before sending it out to the last twenty five agents on my list (and then potentially shelving it for a time), I'm looking to hold myself to higher standards. I don't want to take another ten years to write my next novel, nor do I want to turn out a poor quality work. The idea that some authors can churn out a whole novel in under three months (and sometimes as little as one month) completely blows my mind. Perhaps "slow and steady wins the race" should be my new goal? Or maybe I'm not setting the bar high enough?

So I want to know: do you hold yourself to a daily goal and if so, do you find that your writing suffers as a result? Do you decide to just make substantive revisions at a later date to compensate? What's your goal and do you find it easy to achieve?