On of the hard parts of writing is balancing writing time with getting all those little administrative things done, such as answering emails and Facebook messages or doing bills and balancing bank recs. I mean, seriously, if I have a choice between escaping into a fantasy world of good verses evil that I get to create myself or entering my new purchases into Quickbooks (or worse yet, fold clothes), what do you think I’m going to choose?

Today I chose to do an hour of bank stuff. This sounds easy, but remember that every debit card purchase has to be recorded in the check register. That, and I’m in charge of the whole household’s bank accounts plus my writing account. I also had to unpack from this weekend away. I will answer emails tomorrow. Possibly. I’m putting my phone’s timer on a hour and whatever I get done I get done.

Long story short, between getting bank stuff done and doing house work to catch up from vacation, I didn’t get much writing done. I did write, but not as much as I wanted to, and this came mostly in that little part between sleep and awake…

While I’m glad I am writing everyday (you’ve heard me talk about the benefits of this), I am starting to think I need to add either a fixed period of time or a word count to this. (Probably time more than word count because once I start editing, word count goes out the window.)

I can see myself getting lazy and cheating a bit by giving my writing spot the smallest time available and then blaming it on life. While there are just down days where that kind of thing is necessary, a whole week of them might fall under the heading of “excuse.” I’ve got a deadline to meet, and I need to finish the rough draft of this 30,000 word urban fantasy, pulp novella by January 31st. All of my weekends are take up in between now and then, so I have to get cracking during the week.

I’m going to ponder this problem more at work today and see what kind of solution I can come up with.

How about you? Do you have any writing goals you try to meet each day?

Toodles!