The path I am following has become a well-worn rut. My intuition is telling me, I need to up the ante. What was once difficult to compete, has now become a no-brainer. Over the last several months, I have taken my word count from an average of a hundred words to five hundred. That gives me about thirty-six hundred words per week. The start of a new month is a great reason to set a fresh intention.

Tomorrow, I am increasing my daily target. For seven days, I will shoot to write fifteen hundred words every day, or ten thousand words. It sounds like a lot. I am pushing myself for a few reasons. First, I have projects I want to move towards the finish line. My dream is to complete two short stories. Second, I am using it as a warmup exercise for NaNoWriMo. In November the goal is fifty thousand words for the month.

The most important incentive for completing the challenge is to boost my overall productivity. I love finding creative ways to drive myself to a higher level, and I make it a priority. Its time cuts a new route and venture into the unknown.

What challenges are you setting for yourself?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

The weather is rainy, and the evening air is chilly. While the trees haven’t shed their chlorophyll to reveal their brilliant foliage, leaf-peeping people will soon busy. The other season harbinger has hit the streets – Pumpkin Spice Lattes.

They make me laugh since there is no pumpkin in Pumpkin Spice. They should just call it Spiced Coffee. The seasonal seasonings typically include cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, and allspice, or some combination. The other trick they play to create an olfactory illusion is to mix in the aroma of a browning butter and sugar mixture.

It turns out that we learn to recognize odors through associations. The traditional spices used to highlight the taste of pumpkin pie, link our memories to warm cozy fires, gatherings of family and friends, and the bounty of an autumn harvest.

They say eighty percent of flavor is smell. Maybe that is what I love about autumn, the perfume of leaves, a crackling fire, fresh-baked treats, spiced candles and my morning cup of hot, black coffee. It must be time to enjoy a brisk walk and maybe a Pumpkin Spiced sugar cookie.

What is your favorite part of fall?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

I am struggling with my first draft. I read reports of authors churning out 5,000 or 10,000 words per day, and I wonder if a radioactive spider bit them. Perhaps they mastered time travel, allowing them the luxury of writing, and deleting sentences multiple times. Or maybe they’ve found supercharged coffee beans. I need them in my coffeepot.

Studying successful authors, searching for clues, I discovered a plethora of tricks used to create what some describe as a “vomit” draft. Some locked themselves in hotel rooms, or garden sheds, or composed in their cars. Others, like Victor Hugo, Ernest Hemingway, and even Benjamin Franklin, wrote in the nude, with the idea that without clothes, there was nothing else they could do but write.

Writers have odd habits. We talk to ourselves, and our characters, we frequent baby name websites and please refrain from looking at our search history. I guarantee you don’t want to know. We eavesdrop on conversations in our home away from home, the coffee shop, then stare into space, oblivious of our surroundings. I ask Alexa for synonyms, or how to spell a simple word that refuses to appear on my screen. I am not above doing anything that will facilitate getting more words written faster.

What are your secret writing hacks?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer