1. Having a goal can be useful. I went for a walk on the weekend and set the goal that I was going to walk without pausing until the end of the podcast I was listening to. It helped me push through and walk a smudge further than I might have otherwise.
2. The number is arbitrary. I like the 50k goal. But it's not going to be the right pace for everyone. If what you cone away with is learning your best pace, that's great info.
3. Community helps. Try a write in - virtual, in person, whichever. Knowing all those other people are writing can help. There are enough virtual ones that there is almost always one happening somewhere. Last year, my work schedule let me do one in the mornings. This year I'm going to be looking for more evening ones.
4. Sleep, food, hangouts with people who quite honestly don't care that much about your writing - though the like you, these things are all so good for you. Consider all your people interactions writing research.
5. Move, stretch, hydrate. Take good care of yourself so you can keep coming back and making words.
6. I'm a big fan of trying new things. Dictation, writing by hand, writing in the morning, writing at lunch, writing on my phone, writing with special writer snacks. But the flip side is I also quit a lot of things that turn out not to work. So it's be afraid to try new things. But also don't be afraid to quit the ones that aren't working.
7. There will come a point when the tracker you are using seems to have it in for you. It suddenly tells you, you won't finish until January, or that your daily average dropped. I think tracking helps. But, if you need to look away from the tracker for a few days, and focus on the words you can get, do that. All of this is to support you writing more words. The words are the priority.
