I made a comment the other day about how you need to write every day if you want to keep at it. I was thinking about it again yesterday after talking with Barb and I realized that in 2015 I’ve become extremely lazy in my writing habits.

I’m relying on too many bursts of inspiration and not as much “nose to the grindstone” like I did in the past. I had 9 pieces of fiction published last year, all while keeping my nose down and just pushing through the distractions. This year, with only 3, I’m wayyy off. Granted, a few works were delayed due to circumstances out of my control, but for the most part it’s been because I just have let it slide.

It’s not like I’m making J.K. Rowling money, either. I know better than this. Bad Jason. Bad!

So I guess I’m going back to the tried-and-true method of keeping track of my daily word count. Every day. This works two-fold. First, I’m able to sit back and keep myself honest. Daily word count tracking does this for me, and quite well (as long as I remember to write down the starting and ending numbers). Secondly, I’m able to tabulate my pace and guesstimate when I’ll finish the first draft of a novel or short story. I thought, for example, that Murder World: Kaiju Dusk would be done by now. I actually set it aside so I could finish Kraken Mare. So instead of my August completion date for MW:KD, it’s looking more like an October one. I would have known this if I had kept my spreadsheet up and running.

Hindsight is 20/20. With the Bronze League season over (except for the finals, which my team is not a part of) I can finally focus on getting my writing back on track.

I still have an anthology to edit, after all.