Baby Steps Get the Job Done, and NaNoWriMo/ROW80

My mom has been working on some massive decluttering for the past few years. Some of it is her stuff, but most came from her mother, who passed away a few years ago and had the classic depression-era “collector” mentality. Mom has some health issues, so it’s been slow going at times, but when she’s able, she works on one pile of stuff at a time. Eventually, a pile gets cleared, then a stack, then a whole corner of a room.

She’s still working on it, and it may take a while, but baby steps really do get the job done.

The same goes for our writing, as many of us embark on NaNoWriMo starting this week. For the uninitiated, that’s National Novel Writing Month, a challenge in which the goal is to write 50,000 words–the equivalent of a short novel–in one month. I’ve done it–and won–twice. But it sounds daunting if you’re not a writer, or if you’ve never done it. And indeed, it’s a lot, and it takes dedication. But so does decluttering something like what my mom’s working on, and the same approach can work to getting through a big goal like NaNoWriMo.

Just write a sentence. Then the next. And the next. And the next thing you know, you’ll have a paragraph. A page. A scene. A chapter.

Baby steps really do get the job done.

ROW80Logo175To  that end, I break my NaNoWriMo goal down into weekly goals, as part of my ROW80 goals. This week’s goals were:

  • 4500 words on WIP – close! I got 4,000. I’m happy with that.
  • Keep up with lessons and homework for Promotions workshop – I got the lessons done, will do the homework today (it’s due tonight).
  • Refine layout of Shopping Cart page and individual product page for family member’s web site – No
  • Fitness 4 times, no matter how short – No

Looks like I need to get back into that baby step mentality for the website and fitness. We’ll work on that this week:

  • 12,000 words on WIP
  • Keep up with lessons and homework for Promotions workshop
  • Refine layout of Shopping Cart page and individual product page for family member’s web site
  • Fitness 4 times, no matter how short

What about you? If you’re doing NaNoWriMo and/or ROW80, how are you doing? If not, are you working on some other goal? Have you tried the baby step approach? Please share–I’d love to hear from you!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

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