Can you believe it? I’m halfway to my goal. For 50 days, I’ve written at least 1,000 words per day on my novel—plus whatever blog posts and cat bios I’ve squeezed in. That’s more than 50,000 words in slightly more than a month and a half.

It doesn’t seem real.

Today, I received an email Jami Attenberg mailed in preparation for #1000wordsofsummer. In it, she talked about preparing for the challenge of writing 1,000 words every day for fourteen days. I remember when fourteen days felt like an impossible challenge. Now, it just seems like what you want to do if your goal is to write a book.

Strange how your perspective changes. I think that for me, certain things have helped. One is having a routine: I write at the same time every night, in the same recliner, with the same device and lap desk. Before I start, I make tea (decaf English breakfast) and a glass of ice water. The tea is still steeping when I set it on the side table, so I also have a saucer bearing an envelope of stevia and a spoon so that when the tea has steeped enough, I’ll have a place to set the filter and I can add the sweetener. Sometimes, Charlotte is in the recliner, waiting for me; other times, she’s asleep in her perch and I call her. She doesn’t always stay for the entire session, especially when I finish with the novel and move on to writing other things, but she’ll be here at least part of the time.

Granted, my routine took several days to discover. Also, I’ve had to deviate a couple times, such as when I was away on retreat. But every night, I’ve written at least 1,000 words of my novel, even on the night when I was falling asleep as I wrote.

Another thing that helped was giving myself license to write badly. Tonight’s scene, for example. It will require substantial editing; it may even be cut. But it was an idea, and I fleshed it out, in part to discover more about my narrator and some of the characters. If it doesn’t end up staying, so be it. I don’t have to write extra to make up for the fact that much of tonight’s work will likely end up in the recycle bin.

I’ve found myself wondering what I’ll do when I finish this draft. In the past, I set aside a draft for at least a few weeks before going back to it so I can read with fresh eyes. I don’t want to lose the momentum of writing daily, but what to do during that interim period? Also, once I begin editing, word counts lose their meaning, because changing words doesn’t do much to the count. And what if I chop an entire paragraph or scene? Do I lose credit for having written it in the first place?

So many questions. I could make myself crazy, but tonight, I elect not to.

Because tonight, against all the odds, I reached the halfway point.