Welcome to our weekly Five Minute Friday blog link-up, where we freewrite for five minutes flat on a single word prompt.

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This week’s FMF writing prompt is: PROGRESS

Ready? GO.

I’m a list person. I like to see how much progress I’ve made.

As part of my business, Refine Services, I edit book proposals and manuscripts for authors who are self-publishing or seeking a traditional book contract.

I recently had four projects for clients with varying word counts and overlapping deadlines, so I decided to create a chart for myself to stay on track.

I divided the word counts of each document into the number of days I had before each deadline, then typed the dates in one column, the goal word counts in the next column, and left the third column blank for me to write in the actual word count I had accomplished that day.

It worked so well, I decided to try it with my own writing projects.

I’m currently chipping away at three very different writing projects. Because I haven’t set specific deadlines for myself and because my paid work takes precedence over my own writing, these projects often get pushed to the bottom of the priority pile.

So, I created a chart to help me measure and track my progress. I get to color in a box every time I write 1,000 words. I’ve colored a couple more boxes since taking this picture, but here’s an example:

How about you? What works well for you? What steps are you taking to make progress in your writing life?

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