I finished up the emergency chapter draft on Sunday of last week, hooray! 5200 words in less than a week was one heck of a challenge. Now I’m editing after conferring with my co-author but I’m also moving onto the next projects.
A lot of this progress I credit to the support and accountability that comes from participating in an online writing group. This go-round’s being hosted by Dame Eleanor Hull who’s been fabulous about doling out advice as well as reminding us to keep on track.
For all that writing can be quite a solitary activity, it’s better when you have that support system to both keep you honest and give you some feedback, even if it’s not about your writing in particular so much as your progress. As a couple of other members in this writing group have commented, knowing that someone’s expecting to hear how you did, you push to squeeze in a bit more writing time. You make it a priority because you know that someone outside of yourself and your institutional colleagues will care about what you’re doing. You know that they will commiserate when you detail the week’s tragedies and cheer for the week’s triumphs.
Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’ve got some more writing to do!
jliedl.ca 
ditto I’m really really really surprise how a virtual group sort of keeps that project at the fore of my mind and pushes me to write!
You’re right – just knowing that others are both waiting for your progress and struggling with similar problems? It really helps you keep plugging away and also to accept that a setback isn’t the end of it all.