I’ve spent a lot of time these past few weeks pondering whether I intend to participate this year or not. My current thinking is that I will construct my own challenge, likely writing 1000 words each weekday in my “free writing file” — figuring out ideas I might incorporate in an existing novel draft. I do not think I will be able to carve out a full 90-120 minutes per day, so best not to set that as a goal. An hour is more doable. I could see doing an hour today, but not two hours, and my life will not be different in a week. Future Laura will likely feel the same.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time thinking about what my yearlong projects will be for 2023. The leading contender for a reading project is all the works of Jane Austen (I’m looking for projects that are doable in a few pages a day — to limit resistance — and worth doing, meaning the author’s works have stood the test of time, and that I haven’t read all of them). My current leading contender for a year-long writing project is to write 2 lines in a sonnet every day, thus producing 52 14-line sonnets in a year (longtime readers know that the “collection of sonnets” idea has appeared on versions of my list of 100 dreams). That would also meet my criteria of being doable in a few minutes — to limit resistance — and worth doing.

In any case, it’s a lot of hemming and hawing. Why? Because once I decide to do something, I want to see it through. I really dislike canceling or quitting things. I doubt anyone likes doing so but for myself, I dislike it enough that I’d prefer to quit on the front end — that is, think long and hard about whether I truly want to do something. That’s true for big projects, though it’s true for everyday stuff as well. If I’m going to take something on, I’d like to have a plan, I’d like to have thought through the challenges, and I want to anticipate how I will deal with them.

If I have those three things in place, then it’s not too hard to sustain something, even for a full year. If I don’t, then it will be. And I’ll probably be kicking myself.

Are you taking on NaNoWriMo? What about any 2023 year-long projects?

In other news: I was a guest on The Art of Manliness podcast! This was so cool — I know it has a huge following. If you’re coming here because you heard me there, welcome! I blog a few times a week on productivity topics and daily life. We have a great and positive comment section.

I was also a guest on the lovely Caroline Dowd-Higgins’ podcast, Your Working Life. It is always a treat to talk to Caroline, and the episode is fairly short, so please give it a listen if you’ve got a few minutes!

Photo: Random fall color, fallen to the ground

In any case, the scripts are all 500-1000 words, with most of them hovering toward the lower end of that range. I wrote the first handful separately, but I’ve kept one word file of Before Breakfast episodes for all the fully edited scripts from then on. The running word count on that file recently crossed 600,000 words.

This is an interesting number. It is roughly the number of words in War and Peace. It is not quite as long as the King James Bible (which clocks in at a bit under 800,000 words) but it is a lot of words nonetheless.

One of the items on my current List of 100 Dreams is to write an epic novel. On some level this is a daunting goal. But I have apparently recorded something equivalent in length over the last three years. It’s just that instead of a sweeping multi-generational character saga, it comes in the form of bite-sized productivity advice.

There are lots of ways to view this realization, but one positive approach is to realize that if I do want to write that epic novel, I could use a similar method. Just write 500-600 words every weekday for three years. Or for two years (I don’t need to actually hit 600,000 words!). Producing scripts has not been onerous. I can often write or edit 2-3 during my 12-year-old’s 1-hour fencing class. Fiction is harder, for sure. The organizational work will be a lot more intense. But the process is still all habit, execution, and patience. Just like anything else. Time passes. Words add up. The question is what they add up to.

(In case anyone is wondering, blog posts also add up. WordPress says I’ve published 2750 posts over the years. If each clocked in at 300 words on average, and my guess is the average is higher, that’s over 800,000 words right there…)