This week, I took a page from my post on goals and critical voice. After I reached 10K steps a day, critical voice started demanding I reach that every single day. I started ignoring it, but it kept encouraging me to check the step counter on my phone to see what my number was.

And it had virtually no meaning.

Critical voice got upset if I forget my phone, or it didn’t record the steps properly (having a day where I walked a lot and only got 100 steps).

Me: Why do I need to know how many steps I walked?

Critical voice: How else will you know if you’re being successful?

Me: But why is the number important? What do we do with it?

Critical voice: It means you’re being successful.

It’s a very circular argument. There’s actually no real answer to why I should track my steps. s.

Which goes to word count also. Why exactly do I need to track specific numbers?

Most of the reasons I’ve run across are so you can track how long a project will take. But again, why are specifics necessary? If you know that you need to do 1K a day to finish a project and you hit that number, why is it important to record specifics?

Critical voice: So that you know you hit the goal.

Me: But I hit the goal. How does it help me?

Critical voice: It shows you’re making progress.

Same circular argument. There isn’t any reason to track specifics. So this week, I simply ticked off when I completed my required wordage.

Saturday

I wrote about this last week, but it was a cycling day to get Time Management for Fiction Writers done. It’s now set aside for a bit until my creative side wants to drift back to it and do a final sanity check before I ready it for publication.

Sunday

I dove back into Broken Notes. It was hard getting back in after the week of cycling on the other project.

Critical voice is infamous for remembering the story wrong. It reminds me of all the trauma from originally doing this story, so it must be a terrible idea. It actually wants me to abandon it again.

But I ticked off my daily count. Take that, critical voice!

Monday

I get my feet wet on another non-fiction project, also one that’s been sitting: Research for Fiction Writers.

I started this previously, and then critical voice stalled it out. So it’s another one to return to–and it’s a hard topic. Everyone talks about research based on how they did it for term papers in college. It’s enough to make anyone hate doing research. Why associate home, grades, and lectures with the fun of fiction writing?

I want to go in a different direction than all the other books out there, like I did with my Time Management one. And I want it to feel meaty.

I ticked off my daily count.

Tuesday

Research for Fiction Writers: Ticked daily count.

Broken Notes: Ticked daily count.

Wednesday

Broken Notes: Ticked daily count.

Thursday and Friday

Admin days:

First up was getting the pre-release for Space Dutchman ready. While it takes a long time to do the proofreading phase of the process, it makes the publishing setup much easier. That’s up for pre-release November 15.

I refreshed Death at the Fair and Mayhem in the Library, which needed new covers. I also had to read through the stories, which are mysteries similar to Broken Notes. Critical voice has been lurking in the background, whispering that I don’t know how to write a mystery. These stories reminded me that I do.