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In Praise of Accountability

How much my word count improves when I have an accountability buddy!

Actually, I have two.

One is geographical, we meet every morning in the same location, to do work.

The other, on the other side of the world, keeps track of my word count progress, and I hers.

Now, of course, in an ideal world, I would be able to keep myself in line, be able to complete all I set out to just through will power and intention alone. But not only am I human, I’m a human with a brain that doesn’t generally like to do the executive function things. So while it’s hard to show up for myself, it’s easier and more interesting to show up for others. 

We all need someone to shout at us sometimes.

In fact, I got a text from my accountability partner asking how I was doing. I confessed I was at Barnes and Noble, struggling to come up with blog content. She recommended the use of accountability buddies in writing, pretty much proving the point of how valuable she is.

So, shout out to Alexandra in London, for giving me the inspiration and the idea for this post, and for encouraging me every day. And thank you Susan, for meeting me at six o’clock nearly every morning in coffee shops across the city.

Between the pair of them,  I think I’ve doubled my word count?

All this to say, that the last book in the Relearning Magic series (which I’ve decided to call The Nature of Magic) is nearly done! 

Not only do I have missing scenes needed to fill in a few gaps, it still has to run the battery of edits and rewrites. But the end of this experiment is finally approaching and I can move on to other projects, my darlings like Where Power Lies, and my travel adventure series.

(Fun news, but the location for the first book in the travel series is decided, and I’ll be traveling there in October. More on that as it draws closer, I don’t want to jinx it. But I am very excited to travel again with my family, and I hope that aside from a bunch of wonderful memories, I also get a book out of it.)

It will be my first attempt at a modern Mary Stewart, to be available by the end of the the year.

Now I’ve told you, now all of you have to hold me accountable to that! Pester and demand! Or you could be nice and comment words of encouragement. They are both effective.