By guest blogger Estrella Azul
The first time I reached 10,000 words in one day was the Wednesday 10K Day on June 27th.
I wasn’t supposed to have the day off. But then I did, and decided to spend it writing. I couldn’t
have made a better choice!
Some preparations were made ahead of time, and I am so grateful for Milli’s Ace Your 10K Day! online course for that. Planning ahead was not necessarily something I did before. This time, I had a battle plan. While on previous 10K Days I just reserved the day for writing, this time I wrote specific blog post ideas, titles, and prompts to have at the ready and I went through it all following my “this is what I currently feel like writing” idea.
My “10K Day Writing Plan” for Wednesday, June 27 and Saturday, June 30 had thirteen items on it, as well as “blog comments, check-ins, work emails.” The plan was to check everything off the list and write the comments, work e-mails and check-ins during breaks. And so I did.
It was so easy to write without editing as I went along. Sometimes one just needs the reminder to turn spell check off and enjoy the ride. You can always come back later. Also, I started out with the hardest thing first—the piece I’d been dreading to write—and it led to a breakthrough. Once I got that out of the way, everything else fell into place.
I wrote several short blog posts, and was so happy to have them out of the way, I decided to only focus on those. The so-called small writings, at the end of the day, added up to 10,652 words (and several weeks worth of material for my blog!).
What I didn’t have crossed off from my list, I wrote/finished on Saturday.
Ah, Saturday . . . the day I could barely pull myself out of bed (insomnia definitely doesn’t help the creative process). The day when, even though I’d been constantly reminding my mother that I would be writing on June 30th, I had a bunch of small chores to attend to which added up to quite a few hours of lost writing time. The day some of my pictures were rejected by a website. The day I was frustrated that I had no good ideas for flash fiction and poems. The day I didn’t feel like writing anymore.
The day I started writing this article and in the middle of it switched to writing a flash fiction piece I will submit to an online literary magazine after editing. The day I wrote a few thoughts down which turned into a poem. The day I was running low on energy but then after a latte break was so motivated I finished all the fiction I had previously started but still had hanging in the air, and even some extra pieces. The day I reached 7,016 words.
Up until that moment I’m not even sure how long ago it was when I had everything finished!
So I called it a day. The house was all noisy again anyway and I couldn’t concentrate anymore.
However, it got me thinking about when I set up my Ace Your 10K Day! course profile. My description of what I hoped for was that the online course would –
– help me write more and finally be able to shut out the world around me while I do it. Even if I only get that 1 or 2 days a month for 10K Days, I’m hoping to start getting much more writing done during it and discover why it is that I currently seem not to get (enough) things done when I’d like to.
I am beyond happy to have reached exactly what I was aiming for.
It is so precious (in this day and age) having a whole day of feeling relaxed while doing something we love. Isn’t it?
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RELATED TOPIC
Written by Estrella’s companion who went through the Ace Your 10K Day! course with her:
Writing When the Spirit Moves You by Marilyn Agee
Estrella in the Greek Amphitheatre ruins,
Taormina, Sicily
Estrella Azul is a young emerging writer, passionate about reading, floral art and photography, with an artistic personality and a soulful outlook on life. She is a Hungarian girl living and writing from Cluj-Napoca, Romania, the capital of historical region Transylvania. Estrella is the European correspondent for Milliver’s Travels, and she dreams of embarking on a round-the-world trip. To read more of her creative writing, her thoughts and daily happenings, visit Life’s a Stage – WebBlog©. Read her travel stories by visiting Estrella Azul on Milliver’s Travels.
[…] Tuesday and direct your attention toward the Fear of Writing website, where my guest post “This precious thing of relaxing and doing what we love” is featured […]
Thank you for featuring this as a guest post on FoW, Milli, I really hope people benefit from reading it!
Now, for some side questions I thought of this morning for readers of this guest post:
Do you ever pamper yourself with taking a whole day for writing?
How much, if at all, do you prep ahead of time for writing?
Do you experience days when nothing goes right, and then in ten minutes your whole day shifts around and you end up writing up a storm?
(Milli, feel free to delete this “now for…” ending part of my comment and add it to the post if you want to.)
Twitter: cjtreggett
It’s so great to read about how you experienced such wonderful writing progress and rewards from taking Milli’s online course and encouraging yourself to keep at the writing a little beyond what you initially thought was possible, Estrella. I experienced that myself in my own writing practice and on a few of the 10K writing days too.
I’m a firm believer of ‘one thing leads to another’ and so happy to hear your commitment paid off in leading you to spontaneously ‘find’ a poem, write some flash fiction, and even produce extra writing pieces beyond what you had planned!
Writing a little beyond what I originally thought was possible is the best, I know. One thing does lead to another, how true. Glad to read you’ve also experienced that!
Twitter: AnnieNeugebauer
What a wonderful experience! The 10K Days are something I’ve been meaning to try for a while now. I’ll do it eventually!
It really was such a wonderful experience!
You should join us on a 10K Day, Annie. See the RSVP page up for this month, it is up already.
The most I’ve ever done in a single day was ~7K. Can’t say I enjoyed it.
I prep for writing, but don’t pamper myself. I can’t recall any time in recent memory that I could devote an entire day to writing.
Was that ~7K during NaNoWriMo? If so, I have a feeling not having the pressure to finish X words every single day for a month is what made my experience enjoyable 🙂
Last month I did both 10K Days. I had a week off from work, and every afternoon while crafting and doing all sorts of chores I kept writing. Blog posts, answered (work and personal) e-mails, flash fiction, poems.
It went very well, and I had posts pre-scheduled for almost the whole of October.
So I really did pamper myself again, by taking two whole days to just write. Even if 10K wasn’t the goal that time around.
I strongly recommend taking a whole day to write. Or paint. Or walk. Or do what ever makes our hearts beat a little faster.
Estrella, that was a great article and very inspiring! I’m pretty sure I came close to writing 10K one day, but I don’t think about logging it – will do that next time I set out to spend most of the day writing.
Thank you, Lynn!
Sounds nice how you didn’t feel the need to log it. Life gets in the way enough for me to need to take these days just for writing, or I’d slowly go nuts 😉
(I truly “felt” not taking a 10K Day during summer, I was waaay cranky!)
Twitter: runningonheavy
What a wonderful post, Estrella! It’s so wonderful that you were able to achieve the goal that you set for yourself. I love how you turned a less than happy day around and managed to create your art! Bravo!
Thank you so much, Valeka, you are very kind. It is always great to receive the feedback from a fellow 10K Day participant 🙂
how wonderful to accomplish so much in a day! i am fortunate to have time to write just about every day but i think i could benefit from a little self-discipline.
great post, Estrella!
♥
Congrats on your 10k day, Estrella. I have no idea how many words I have written in a day, but I know it has been a lot, particularly toward the end of NaNo. Sure, I do look at the word count, I just tend to forget the tally in short order.
I do a lot of prep work for long form writing, but more or less write by the seat of my pants for flash fiction and poetry. And I have had many a frustrating day when nothing goes right when suddenly the right spark hits me and the words start to flow.
The main thing is to sit down and start to try, for without beginning one surely won’t finish.
~jon