Goals or Ghouls?

      This weekend I'm setting a goal for myself. Between Friday night and Sunday morning, I plan on adding 3,000 words to my WIP.

       More importantly, I want to make some real progress when it comes to the plot. I have a couple of different storylines going, and moving forward with both of them would make me a happier writer. (The rest of the world might hope I never finish it. I get that. ;)

       Last Friday I wrote at a local coffeehouse. For a little longer than 3 hours I wrote. I set a word count goal, and wouldn't leave until I'd accomplished it.  (Thankfully, I got there--to my word-count goal-- a whole 10 minutes before they closed for the afternoon.)


        Are goals good things or horrid things--things that you avoid? Sometimes we set goals for ourselves and then beat ourselves up when we don't attain them. Sometimes those unattained goals haunt us. Doesn't that set us back even further?

       And if you have some tricks when it comes to goals, let us know. Procrastinating minds want to know...

Sometimes You Just Need a Foxhole to Hunker Down Into

       This past Friday I was off work. Well, it was well-earned day off. It wasn't like I was playing hooky or anything like that. I had worked an extra 107 7 hours last week, meeting with parents during parent-teacher conference week, and this was considered "comp time."

       However, I worked on my day off work. I met with my teaching partner until close to noon. We planned. Then I headed to a coffeehouse (The Corner Coffeehouse in Ferguson) with my laptop in hand, and I wrote.

        I wrote despite a group of senior citizen men who were having a raucously-good time in the middle of the shop.

       I wrote despite a woman sitting in the booth behind me who intrigued me. She was coloring-in an intricate coloring page. Had she heard of zentangles? I really wanted to lean around the back of my booth and ask her, but since I didn't want to be disturbed with what I was doing, I wasn't going to bother her.

       I wrote despite being the last person left in the shop when it was just about to close and despite me feeling like the lone employee left was itchin' to get me out of there.

       Howboutchoo? What have you done lately despite... ?