Ten More Words

 Hello, fellow writers! I'm sure many of you are buried deep in your NaNoWriMo novel, or, if you're sane enough to avoid that level of stress (I am not), then you're prob'ly working on your other writing goals, be they a short-term word count goal or a long-term plan for a series.

Either way, by now you have prob'ly discovered the hard way that word count goals aren't always enough to motivate you. Instead, they begin to feel like a deadline of the kind you saw in high school: The only thing they inspire is stressed-out last-minute writing--or failure.

Well, no more! Or at least, less often. Here is the single most useful writing tip I have ever heard, bold-faced and centered to show its importance:

WRITE TEN WORDS.

That's it. Ten words. Maybe not even a full sentence. There are some nights I am so fed up and tired that I collapse on my bed in defiance of my writing goals. However, thirty seconds later, when word counts inevitably begin to weigh on my perfectionist-conscience, I tell myself this one comforting piece of advice.

WRITE TEN WORDS.

It's almost impossible to finish an idea in ten words. A short sentence, a snatch of action, a snippet of dialogue--but that's it. The idea remains unfleshed, incomplete. So naturally, I have to go a little over ten words to make sure I don't forget whatever it is I was going to write.

An hour later, I've written several pages. It's amazing how quickly ten words turns into ten sentences, ten paragraphs, ten pages. Keep it up, and you'll have ten chapters. Not all in one night or even one week, but sooner rather than later.

Where did I get this genius piece of writing advice? What wonderful writing book contains these three vital words on motivation? Well, it's, um, not a writing book. It's a graphic novel. About Star Wars. To be precise, the first Jedi Academy book by Jeffrey Brown. A middle-school Jedi-in-training writes a diary, and in the back of the book there's instructions on how to keep your own diary, with the crucial words, "Try to write at least ten words every day." Genius.

That advice has prob'ly saved my NaNoWriMo novel several times this week alone. All I have to do is write ten more words--and it never stops there.