Of How I Overcame Writer's Block: A Word Count Goal Worksheet

Writing a novel is hard. Really, really hard. If you've finished one, you know. If you're working on one, you also know. If you've never tried, then trust me: it's hard.

There are many reasons why writing an entire novel from beginning to "the end" is tough. It's like juggling 100 plates in the air at once. All writers have difficulties with different parts of the process. For me, getting through writer's block and making the time to write are particularly challenging.

A few months ago, I was about 25,000 words into my latest draft, and I was suddenly stuck. I couldn't have been more stuck if my fingers were glued together and my brain was filled with concrete. I had gotten to the point where I couldn't see the forest for the trees. Finishing seemed so far away that I couldn't figure out how to get there. Weeks, then months went by with little to no progress.

As I usually do, I turned to the Internet for advice. There is tons of good advice out there for overcoming writer's block: freewriting, skipping to a different place in the novel, taking a walk, drinking, writing on a schedule, etc. etc. There are even some great online word count trackers to keep track of your progress. I tried it all. None of it was working for me. What was even more frustrating was that I had the rest of the novel outlined. I had a map to the end, but my car was out of gas.

Long story short, I decided that what I needed was a checklist. Lists have always been my salvation. Nothing is more satisfying than crossing an item off a list or putting a ✓ in a box. I picked a daily word count goal of 500 that seemed attainable (that number was my average word count on a good day, but many writers average around 1000). Then I committed to meeting this word count goal five days per week. Adding that up (500 words per day × 5 days per week × 5 weeks = 12,500 words per month) meant that I'd rack up 25,000 words in two months! When I saw the numbers in black and white, it almost seemed too good to be true!

I sketched out my worksheet in boxes on a sheet of paper and gave it a try. Some days I made the goal, some I didn't, but to my delight, it worked! Two and half months after I started using my checklist, I had written over 25,000 words. My manuscript had doubled from 25,000 to nearly 60,000 words in less than half the time it took me to write the first part. I finally found my own personal miracle cure for my writer's block!

My handwritten worksheets

Every writer's process is individual, but I wanted to share my worksheet in the hopes that it will help someone else. You can adjust the numbers in the Word document to suit your own preferences. The only rule is that you have to celebrate when you get to the end of the sheet. Eat a cupcake, buy a new pair of shoes, go see a movie...whatever you want to do to celebrate getting to a writing milestone!

Good luck and happy writing!

Writing Word Count Goal Worksheet