It’s been a slow day today. I woke up in the middle of the night with a headache and it progressed to a full migraine by morning. I took a migraine pill and climbed back into bed. It’s starting to recede now, but I’ve just spent the day going at about 1/4 speed.

I’m not regretting it though. Ordinarily, I’d probably be panicked that I wouldn’t get my word count in for the week, but I already lost that last week. Focusing on the Kickstarter campaign along with it being a show week got me behind, and then Sunday I could have caught up easily, but I just didn’t have the mental state for it. So, I fell off at 89 weeks.

Yesterday, I’d been thinking about changing my system anyway and even talked about it with my son. I was thinking about not recording daily words at all. What???!!! Yeah, weird, especially since I know I operate better when I do things daily. But I thought about just recording words when the project is all done. I’m great at starting things, but I think having something like this to act as a push to finish would be good for me.

Then today, with the migraine, it is like it’s proof that some days my body just isn’t capable of getting in the words. It would be easier to rest and let myself have an easy day (as I’ve done today) if I don’t have to get the minimum words in. Okay, so this blog post will probably be long enough that I’ll still get those words in because the daily isn’t hard. And that’s also been part of the issue. I write for a bit and get in the minimum words for the day and then my critical voice sneaks in to tell me that I should go take it easy, that I have lots of other stuff to get done. It ends up winning in ways that don’t amuse me. But if there was no longer this daily word push, only an acknowledgement of the words done at the end of the project, then I feel that I could push critical voice away.

But that means letting go of my daily streak which is currently at 468 days. It’s not like I can keep up the streak either. If I change systems, it is a complete switchover, otherwise I’m still doing the same thing.

So, I’m still debating on this. I’m not quite sure how I feel, except that I think it would push me through to finish. If I were to look at Heinlein’s Business Rules for Writers, I fall down at “You must finish.” I have far more undone than I have completed. But I am catching up and this change in thinking might push me to get more done.

But enough to hit my yearly goals? Or even monthly goals to make sure I’m on track?

There’s a possibility that I’ll try this for two weeks to a month to see how it goes. I can always rig my spreadsheet so I can drop back in and pick it up.

Anyway, lots to get done for the show this weekend, so I better hop to it.

Have fun!