I’ve told you about my Wednesday Brainstormer #WIPcrack crew. The one where we meet each week to inhale copious amounts of Starbucks and pound out word count.  These women are my rock.

But I have another writing group I want to tell you about. A micro-group within the group.  A group that connects each DAY at the crack of frickin’ dawn to chip out word count.

Its roots began in a bitchfest with a CP of mine. We were whining about finding time to write, enabling each other with the rote excuses of day job, family, exhaustion, etc. Basically commiserating and giving ourselves permission to prioritize everything and anything other than our writing.

Fuck it, I said. We’ve gotta do this. And we’ve gotta make the time to do it.

When? How? CP countered with. You can’t make time you don’t have.

Oh yes, we can. We’re gonna get our asses out of bed an hour early every day and write, damn it.

Are you fucking serious? CP looked as if she wanted to smack me.

Dead serious. Shut up. Do it, I say!

And so the pact was made.

And we were so eager. Hopping out of bed every morning in the easy, breezy summertime, when the morning sunshine peeked gently into our windows and sweet birds chirped their wake-up tune and the weather was warm and welcoming and stretch, yawn, we can do this. The words flowed like honey! Yay!

And then winter set in. Wisconsin winter.

When the alarm goes off like a siren in the pitch dark and you flail and smash your fist to silence it. You mummify yourself in fleece just to run through an icy house and kick-start the furnace before grabbing a cuppa to clutch and thaw your fingers out. The words don’t come so easy when the chattering of your teeth drowns out the voices in your head.

We wanted to quit. Tried to quit. Quit. Took the holidays off. But we got back at it in the new year and even initiated a new member into our early morning cult to shake things up again. We didn’t give up. We didn’t let the whining excuses win. We didn’t let the cold and dark win. Instead, we continued to check in every single morning to report word count or failure to launch. We held ourselves accountable. We wrote.

And we made progress. Because 200 words on a patookie-freezing winter morning is still 200 words more than we’d have written on an excuse and shifted priority ridden day.

Chip. Chip. Chip. Little by little. Winter will turn to spring. 200 words a day will turn into a novel. The early bird gets the word (count).

What are you willing to do to commit to your writing? What new habit could you form to reach your goals? Can you do it alone? No? Partner up. Being held accountable is the best way to stick to it.

Forget excuses. Write.