two hundred and fifty

There are many ways to approach a problem, but by far my steady go-to approach has long been incrementalism.

A little over a year ago I started writing a novel.

This is actually a complex and confusing anecdote about sitting down to write a trilogy of novels, nearly finishing the first one, deciding that it was actually not a trilogy but just one great big story, then reopening what I thought was a climactic conclusion of my book to instead trudge into the effort of writing another entire novel-worth of story to finish the plot in a meaningful and interesting way.

The first half took me two months. The second half is approaching a year worth of effort.

Of course, in that time life has got in the way. I’ve been working, parenting, going back to school, and coding a video game—but I digress.

The point is that I have been incrementally working towards finishing the novel. I have been writing it two hundred and fifty words at a time. Little steps. Inching closer to completion. Trudging ever forward.

Is this the ideal approach?

Heck, I don’t know. I’d like to tell you that I have stumbled onto some great secret of success, but the reality is that slow and steady progress is such an old piece of advice that it literally has it’s own spirit animal in the tortoise.

Each day I sit down and write (at least) 250 words, one word at a time, one keyboard stroke at a go, all to add onto my novel. Each day I incrementally move slighty closer to the end. Each day I am 250 words closer to being done.

My point is that some problems and projects are just big and there is no quick and easy fix.

My fix, neither quick nor easy, is to write two hundred and fifty words each day. Like a tortoise in a foot race.