Wow!

A few weeks ago, I read the beginning chapters of "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. She details the process she used to increase her productivity as a writer, but it's aimed at artists in general. I had no idea painters and sculptors could get blocked, too.

Her first assignment is to begin daily morning pages. They're supposed to be three long-hand pages of free writing, done every day, first thing in the morning. I did them long-hand to begin with, but I can't write that much at a sitting. Too much typing can cause a tendinitis flare-up, and writing long-hand for any length of time is almost torture. It's a challenge for me to write a personal letter, let alone three pages. I started doing them with Dragon and it's gone much better. I've been doing them steadily for two weeks now, and because I'm doing the word count challenge with Forward Motion I've been counting them for my words and time. I almost fell over when I recorded my pages this morning. Here are my mid-month stats:

Word count goal as of today: 7,560
Time goal as of today: 420 minutes

Words on the book (not morning pages or other stuff): 7,257
Time on the book: 309 minutes

Total word count: 17,523
Total time: 629 minutes

Analysis might look like I'm using the morning pages to bulk up my word count. However, last January I did 4,535 words and 447 minutes total. I didn't break 7,000 words in a month until April. The fact that I'm only 300 words from my goal just on the book is remarkable. I'd call this progress.

I guess I'd better finish reading that book.