For me, 2025 was consumed by application season.
Research. Publications. Studying. Planning. Obligations. More planning.
All necessary. All important. And all quietly crowding out the one thing that has always helped me breathe: writing.
I did some editing on my women’s fiction—nothing insignificant, but nothing transformative either. I didn’t move the needle. And if I’m being honest, I got carried away with my own novel in the worst way possible: I started rereading instead of editing. Then rereading turned into reading. And reading turned into avoidance disguised as productivity.
To make things sweeter and more complicated, my mom spent a lot of time with me last year. By the time she left after Christmas, I hadn’t made the kind of headway I’d hoped for creatively. Life had been full—just not full of words on the page.
I even drove to New York to drop her at JFK, and if you’ve ever been to NYC, you know what I mean when I say this: there’s just something about it.
I don’t know if it’s the energy, the hustle, the noise, or the audacity of the city itself—but I always come back re-energized. Ideas start firing again. Characters start whispering. My brain wakes up.
So when I returned, with New Year’s right around the corner, I made a quiet decision: I was going to write the way I used to.
Years ago, I had a simple rule.
I wrote 200 words a day. Then I stopped.
It worked—for that season of life. But now, with everything on my plate—planning a move, apartment hunting, organizing, studying, finishing one research project, and doing data entry for another (I still wish there were an easier way for that)—I needed to be strategic.
Two thousand words a day felt impossible. Unrealistic. Heavy.
But I also knew that 200 words wasn’t going to get me where I wanted to go.
So I landed on a middle ground.
1,000 words a day.
It felt doable. Manageable. Almost… light.
And surprisingly, I could get it done fast.
The Structure That Saved Me
Before I wrote a single new word, I paused and planned—just enough to prevent myself from getting stuck.
I created three major arcs for a contemporary romance novel. I won’t pretend I was starting from nothing—I had about 20,000 words from an old rough draft that I decided to resurrect. But instead of diving back in blindly, I reread it quickly and stepped back.
I mapped out:
- Three parallel arcs in each chapter
- Key milestones for each arc
- A loose chapter plan to guide momentum
Nothing fancy. Nothing rigid. Just enough of a roadmap to keep me moving forward instead of spiraling.
Then, every day, I wrote 1,000 words.
Some days, I got carried away and wrote more. Other days, I stopped exactly at 1,000 and closed the document without guilt.
One trick that helped immensely:
I always stopped in the middle of a scene.
Mid-conversation.
Mid-dinner.
Mid-dialogue.
It made it easy to return the next day. No blank-page panic. No “where was I going with this?” dread.
And on days when my brain felt dry or tired, I gave myself permission to simply describe the scenery, revisit my plot lines, or deepen the emotional atmosphere. Words still counted—even if they weren’t brilliant.
Writing as Regulation, Not Perfection
Around this time, I watched a doctor on YouTube mention that writing helps relax the brain. That it regulates stress. That it gives the mind somewhere to place pressure instead of letting it build.
That hit me hard.
I had been carrying so much stress—so much internal noise—and not writing had made it worse. Getting the words out, imperfect and unedited, helped me feel like I had some control over my life again.
This draft was never about perfection.
I didn’t edit as I went. I barely reread.
I let it be messy.
Occasionally, I’d do light editing—especially after listening to a BBC Radio interview with Oscar-winning film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, who edited daily alongside Martin Scorsese on every project. That idea stuck with me. Some days, a light pass made the manuscript more readable and helped the flow when I returned the next morning.
But editing was optional. Writing was not.
Mood Matters More Than Motivation
Another unexpected tool?
Atmosphere.
I listened to music that matched the emotional tone of the story. I watched dramas—eventually landing on K-dramas—that carried a similar romantic and emotional flavor. Even when I didn’t feel like writing, staying immersed in the mood helped keep the characters alive in my head.
Inspiration doesn’t always come from discipline.
Sometimes it comes from surrounding yourself with the right textures.
The Result
By February, I had stuck to the plan.
The result?
A 60,000-word first draft of a contemporary romance—nearly ready to be shaped before I go back to editing my women’s fiction.
This romance will be a project for next year. But it did something just as important: it gave my creative brain a break between genres. When I return to women’s fiction, I know I’ll see it with fresh eyes.
More than that, it made me feel good again.
The guilt of not writing lifted.
The claustrophobic feeling of being a creative with nowhere to put emotions eased.
The pressure finally had an outlet.
Why the 1,000 Words a Day Plan Works
You don’t need three arcs.
You don’t even need a detailed plot.
But having a general map—something to guide you when motivation dips—makes all the difference.
1,000 words a day is small enough to fit into real life.
But big enough to compound quickly.
It’s progress without punishment.
Momentum without burnout.
So if you’ve been stuck, overwhelmed, or quietly grieving the creative version of yourself you haven’t seen in a while—why not give it a try?
You don’t need perfection.
You just need a page.
And tomorrow, another one.
Happy writing