Don't Break the Chain

I'm starting a new thing.  And I don't mean a book - I mean a way to work more consistently on my writing.

Earlier in the year, I was writing pretty much every day.  It would have to be a pretty hectic day for me to miss doing any writing-related work at all and, even if one day's stuff would be utter crap, at least I was moving forward.  And you know what they say: the more you write the better you get.  I'm a firm believer in this statement, especially considering the car-crash of some of my writing back in college.

So, this thing.  It's called 'Don't Break the Chain' and I got it from a video from a youtube vlogger, the Stephen-Fry-approved charlieissocoollike.  Here's his channel, and here's the video itself.

The idea is simple: to write (or do whatever task you wish to do consistently) every single day, without fail.  Essentially, not breaking the chain.  I'll be printing myself off a little calendar within the next couple of days to pin on my wall so that my little OCD-brain can happily cross off each day and I can pretend that I am actually a productive individual.

I originally watched the video when it first appeared in April and, while I liked to idea, I didn't implement because I didn't feel I needed to.  I was motivating myself tolerably enough (I recall through the rose-tinted delusion of my mind, while if I look back at my blog posts I might, in fact, be lying).  It wasn't until going back to my 'proper' job last month that I found my production levels dropping even further than my grumpiness-inspired levels of August.

Therefore, we're going with the crossing-stuff-off-of-charts/calendars thing.  I made this decision on my birthday, perhaps as some sort of age-crisis thingy, and started it the next day.  I have managed it each day since then, despite the absence of an actual calendar, and while I haven't suddenly completed the second book, sent it off to agents and received a staggeringly fabulous publishing deal, I have made some progress.

Chapter 11 is finally done, after having been growled at for a significant amount of time, and Chapter 12 is underway.  I'm having a fight with some character names at the moment, though that's more to do with a personal fascination with symbolism than anything to do with the plot.  That and a couple of vexing students at college - both sharing the same first name - had the same name as one of my characters.  Given that I was starting to be intensely annoyed by said character, the baby name books came out again and it all sort of snowballed from there.

I'm closer to getting a preliminary title for book two, but it probably needs me staring at it for a few more hours until I'm satisfied.

Right, back to the names - I know there's a perfect one in there somewhere.