Diary of an Unmotivated Writer (Week 1)

When I grow up I want to be a novelist. Unfortunately, at thirty-years-old, we're starting to broach "grown up territory" and I should probably shit or get off the pot (see, I'm already practicing my literary language). I have found that public accountability can be a pretty effective motivator, for me. If I was forced to display my weight on Facebook everyday I'd be super-model thin. If someone said that all my workouts were going to be blasted on the school marquee at work, I'd live on the treadmill. So, in order to motivate myself to get into writing, I thought I'd start a new weekly feature here. NaNoWriMo also kicks off today, and while true participation is not a realistic option this year, November still seems like a good time to refocus. 

I may joke, and fantasize about how I'll react when my pretend agent informs me my novel is up for auction at Christie's between three of the Big Ones, but I know that the chances of me publishing a finished novel are incredibly slim. But this is something I don't want to die wondering if I could have accomplished. In actuality, I just want to finish a draft. And then we'll proceed accordingly.  I am the type of person that finishes what she starts, and the fact that I have started and stopped writing so many times is downright irritating.

Each weekend I'll update the two or three of you that read these posts about what I've done during the week to move things along. Some weeks I may write thousands of words on my "project" (calling it a "novel" seems so presumptuous and douchey), some weeks there might be absolutely nothing, except me saying "I graded student writing... does that count?"

I started my current project over a year ago, and while I'm not going to go into specifics (#vagueblogging), it was, and is, something I was really excited about. I have somewhere around 23,000 words so far, so I definitely have a decent start. I also know where it's going pretty precisely, so that helps matters to. 

So, to recap:

Week 1

Words: 23,288

Actions: Thought about making this blog post

Plan: Write 500 words (it's going to be a busy week), start a Pinterest board full of writing quotes (probably not), keep reading (field work, duh)