This was not the post I was expecting to write.

Last week I finished the most recent novel. I posted on Instagram (one of the few Social Media I have)about how quickly I completed it.

There were numerous comments of “congratulations” “wow”, and this got me thinking.

How many writers are out there struggling to get their word counts. I’m usually one of them, but for the past month, I haven’t been.

It started with figuring out how I wrote another novel and why I completed it so quickly.

The other book was written using a beat sheet, but when I finished it I realized the writing felt stilted and false. The one rule I’ve stuck to in my writing is tell the truth. No matter what the truth is in the story, tell it.

The other thing I did in that novel was a timer. I would write, unencumbered, that means no stops to fix punctuation. I took what I liked, the timer, and modified it.

I would write a book, using twenty-five minute sprints, with a five minute break in between.

The first day I only wrote 1860 words. The second day, I wrote 2700 words. When a part of the story felt wrong, I’d fix it. When punctuation was needed, I’d changed it. I would stop to adjust story issues along the way, but I would keep to my timers and their five-minute breaks.

My average was around 3000 words a day. But I completed that draft in one month and four days. I started on December 1st, finished on January 4th.

I’d never written that quickly and completing another book made me happy.

This year isn’t about writing books, it will be about publishing them or getting representation. Last year I submitted a novel to twelve agents, all of them but one rejected it. That one left the agency and no longer works in publishing.

I’m working that book with my writing group. Meanwhile, I’ll be writing more stories, creating new worlds and now that I’m eight books in, I’m figuring things out better.

Happy writing.