At the start of this year, when I set my plans and goals, I expected trouble reaching my word count goal. Living in the changing landscape of a pandemic while attempting to finish a house remodeling project, well, I figured things would not go according to my wishes. Nonetheless, I set aside time for writing every day and considered I’d won even if I only wrote for a few minutes.

Discouragement topped my list of feelings about my progress. Thoughts of “I have gotten little done” and “I am so far behind where I should be” were a recurring theme. But my fingers hit the keyboard, and I refused to abandon my commitment. Slow and steady isn’t sexy. We admire the overnight successes, the fastest runner, the first to publish, and those who hustle at lighting speed. I know I am none of those things.

This month when I sat to review my results and devise a plan forward, I decided to track and new matrix. Since June 2018, I have been recording my daily word counts in an Excel spreadsheet. Yes, I am that geek. For fun, I conducted a year-over-year and a month-by-month comparison. From the total words written standpoint, 2019 was my best year, while 2020’s total fell off a cliff. There is no surprise there.

The biggest shock came when I compared my 2021 YTD words with my 2019 word count through July. You could have knocked me over with a feather. My current year total is slightly ahead of 2019’s total through the same period. If I maintain this year’s daily word count averages, I will surpass my best year by 2%.

However, if you exclude my two lowest months for 2021—the two months I focused on finishing the remodel—something incredible happens. When I extrapolate for the rest of the year, I stand to beat 2019’s total by 25%. Without realizing it, I’ve been making slow and steady progress. The key has been persistence and an unwavering dedication to writing every day. I love numbers, and this new matrix has given my motivation the boost I’ve been needing.

Are you moving closer to achieving your goals?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

I love magic. Books have always provided a ready source of the elixir I crave. The book doesn’t have to be a fantasy with wizards, witches, or supernatural creatures. Books about history sweep me away to another time. Treatises, opinion pieces, and even diatribes expose me to different points of view. It doesn’t matter if the author minted their words yesterday or hundreds of years ago. My perceptions are altered, expanded, and perhaps changed. Being willing to open my mind and consider a different perspective is a daily habit.

But often reading alone is not enough. Writing helps congeal thoughts, tightens reasoning and logic, and reveals contradictions. I am a barbarian who enjoys highlighting lines of text in an actual book. I also make notes in the margins with questions, references to something else I’ve read, or ideas I want to pursue.

Often this is not enough, and I feel compelled to handwrite a page or two where I explore my responses or run off onto illogical tangents. Occasionally, this sort of exercise leads me into full research mode. I feel this type of Free-writing can allow you access to your beliefs, concerns, and troubles we all have buried below the surface. Once they see the light of day, they demand acknowledgment, and the process begins anew.

Will you discover something magical today?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

My month-end review reminded me we are one month into the second half of the year. Five months and counting until this year ends. Are you hitting your on-track markers? Or did you join the ranks of most of the resolution breakers and quit in February? Honestly, I don’t make resolutions. I prefer to set my goals, and work towards them. I change, adapt, or alter my trajectory as the weeks and months progress, and I determine how easy or difficult it is to move the needle. It is also the reason I conduct monthly reviews. I don’t consider goals an all-or-nothing proposition. Life is not a pass-fail class.

Instead, I assess whether the goal is severing me, and if not, I abandon it and replace it with a more appropriate goal. A better choice is to tweak my route, alter my expectations, or rework certain aspects of my game plan. The primary criteria I use when evaluating my goal quest is, am I making progress? Am I closer to attaining the prize than I was last month? If I’m not, and this happens more often than I care to admit, I look for bona fide reasons. I’m not interested in excuses but actual reasons. I did not hit my daily walking goal in July. The main reason I missed my target involved leg cramps and a tender Achilles bursitis. The treatment is rest. This goal requires modification until my condition resolves.

At the other end of the spectrum, my daily writing habit is alive and well. In July, hitting the goal felt too easy so, in August, I am raising my target word count. It won’t be anything crazy, but the idea is to increase the total words I write by 1% over the day before. I know it doesn’t sound exciting, and most people wouldn’t even notice. But let’s say I start day one and write 300 words. If I could sustain a measly daily increase of 1%, then on day 150, I would write 1,321 words, and on day 365, I would write a staggering 11,335 words. Yeah, I don’t see that happening either. Hitting 2,000 words in a single day, I would place firmly in the win column.

Are you making progress towards your goals?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

Today the calendar announces the start of a new month and a chance to begin again. There is no one looking over my shoulder, checking to make sure I finish my assignments and complete my goals. My successes and shortcomings rest on my shoulders. I am the boss, the worker bee, the strategic analyst, the creative director, the janitor, and the person who gets the morning coffee for the group.

I scheduled the team’s monthly review meeting, where we congratulated ourselves for hard-won victories, identify places where we fell short, and devise future strategies. We examine the numbers, agree on plan modifications, and narrow the month’s focus. We adjourn the meeting with a pep talk followed by high-fives. My hard-working administrative assistant stacks the various hats in the corner, and I get to work.

What goals have you set for yourself?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

The biggest weekend perk is the chance to sleep late. I may have a delayed sleep phase disorder. It is a phenomenon where an individual ends up falling asleep after the standard bedtimes of most folks. For years, I believed I suffered from insomnia. Aren’t we all supposed to nod off at 10 pm and rise eight hours later? The problem is, I hit my second wind around nine and don’t become tired enough to relax and fall asleep until well after midnight. But having to conform to social norms requires me to set my alarm for 5 am.

Thanks to technology, I have monitored, logged, and tracked my sleep schedule. When I am left to wake without the aid of an alarm clock, my regular cycle lasts six hours and twenty minutes. I routinely start projects after nine in the evening and often continue until one or two in the morning.

Despite what most might think, staying up late does not mean I am wasting time watching tv or playing video games. Instead, these are great opportunities for grocery shopping, doing laundry, cleaning the house, and writing. If I am on a roll, I may opt to work past what I consider my usual bedtime and finish when others are waking. This situation leaves me with a tough decision — do I try to get some sleep or push to stay awake?

The beauty of the weekend is I can allow my natural circadian rhythms to dictate my schedule. The added benefit is, my endless list shrinks, I complete multiple items, my mood improves, and I don’t feel as exhausted. I appreciate my morning coffee more, and the world feels a little less annoying.

What do you enjoy most about weekends?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer