Breaking Big Goals Into Smaller Pieces: 1,000 Words by Jami Attenberg
I'm a huge fan of novelist and memoirist Jami Attenberg: her writing is consistently great. I am encouraged by her career trajectory of selling her first novel to an indie press and selling her next novel to a bigger publishing house.
Her Substack is essential for any creative writer, especially (but not only!) when she runs the annual 1,000 Words of Summer. The length of a novel manuscript is considered at least 70,000 words--an intimidating thought! But the challenge of writing 1,000 words a day, every day, for three months sounds a lot more attainable. A summer of writing like this results in a first draft. Edits and multiple new drafts await, but that's not the point!
The point is, that getting to a big goal (70k words) can intimidate a person so much they don't start. Breaking a big task into lots of small, daily ones (1,000 words a day for 90 days) can help.
Jami's Substack is lovely because during these challenges, subscribers get a short, inspirational post in their inbox once a day. It's always cheering her subscribers on to keep going on believe in ourselves!
There is a mini-1,000 word challenge going one right now: 1,000 words a day for a week. Today is Day 4, and ... this post is helping me hit my word count!
To hold myself accountable, here were my goals this 1,000 word challenge week:
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Ask me on Friday if I hit my word count!
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Last Note: Jami's Substack is free and I encourage everyone to subscribe. If you're intrigued by this project, I also encourage you to pre-order her book on this topic.
It was my goal to pre-order this book and today, I hit that goal! I want to support Jami as much as possible as a thanks for all of the inspiration and encouragement I've gotten from her Substack newsletter.
Assistant Professor at Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Somerset County
1 年Love this challenge- good luck! This concept of accountability can be applied to so many areas.