Book in a Week (BIAW) time is quickly approaching again. The name is misleading -- you don't actually write a book in a week. Instead, it's about setting goals, and hopefully, meeting them.

The BIAW group that I'm with claims to magically disconnect your computer's backspace and delete keys, so there's no editing allowed. Just straight writing.

Great idea -- really helps to motivate you to just bang those pages out. But that internal editor is really difficult to turn off. Really. Really, really.

The first BIAW I participated in, I was sure everything I wrote was total crap. But I stayed true to the guidelines, and not only did I not edit, I didn't even go back and read what I'd written. Oh, from day to day I might have read the last couple of sentences I'd written the day before, but that was only to get myself back on track. And that was it.

When I went back afterward, I saw that although I hadn't written literary gold, it wasn't half bad!

That first BIAW, I'd done over 300% of my goal of 10 pages. The second one, I upped my goal by 300%. And met it. Did 110%.

I've only just now gone back to read and edit what I wrote in last month's BIAW. And I was pleasantly surprised. Matter of fact, a couple of times I thought, "Wow! I wrote that?"

And of course, this links to my last entry in that my writing is getting better as I go.

So BIAW approaches again, and I'll up my goal again. Think I'll shoot for 40 pages this time. That's 40 pages in 12pt Courier New, double-spaced with one-inch margins. I can do it. And it'll be good.

Another good thing about BIAW is that I know I have to write those pages. When I participated last month, my ms was stalled. I was baffled about which way to go. But when I had to write, suddenly, I was unstalled.

Can't wait till the next one. I have to get my characters to a bar in Albany, Georgia so they can be mooned by a giant, hairy toothless drummer.