First draft by my birthday

Hurray, Liz! You'll be in good company, too, since I read that 500 a day was Terry Prachett's word count.

That's a great goal! Rooting for you

That's what got me my first draft, though I started even lower at 200 words (had a 4 month old at the time, just writing each day was an achievement!). I found I gained momentum and finished before my goal, and though rewrites are taking longer than hoped (more burn out from life than writing, though), slowly chipping away does way more than waiting for big chunks of time, imo.

Good luck with it all

It's 100% possible, and a lot more realistic than my current crunchtime goal (2k a day).

Keep it up, keep it up! Print out a calendar, and write your final wordcount for the day on it. That's what helps me (most of the time)

Gogogogo!

My writing skills have steadily improved in recent times, but I'm not sure you could tell that by reading my first drafts. The important thing is to have a first draft. Keep going. You're doing the right thing by going forward.

You have been so vicious with yourself lately that I think you ought to consider that you're not the best person to judge whether your work has improved or not.

Personally, I like to swing between viciousness at myself and delusions of grandeur while I'm writing. Neither one serves me to write better; only pushing forward serves me. I know this, and it doesn't stop me from indulging in thoughts that I am either terrible or wonderful. But I also don't allow those thoughts to keep me from pushing forward. I consider it my only hope.

If I had the words to inspire you to treat yourself more gently, I would say them. But I'm not sure that I have that kind of power. I can only assure you that you deserve to treat yourself more gently and I hope that you find me trustworthy enough to believe that I mean it. And I don't know that I have the appropriate words to keep you moving forward, either. I can only advise you to keep putting one foot in the front of the other, and don't look back. Not now.

I think now's a good time to take a look at the quote you've got in your signature.
"Keep going. Finish what you start."
Just keep powering through and remember that everything can be rewritten and worked upon later. First drafts are always terrible.
There's another quote I like to think about when I'm feeling that way: "Nothing begets nothing while something might beget something good".
Just keep writing and you'll discover the beauty of your writing in the rewrites. All the first draft has to do is exist. That's its only job!
You've got this!

Hey, 3000 new words means you're not stalled anymore. My week was similarly slow, but it seemed necessary. Keep going. You can do this.

Yay! Now you only have to do that nine more times and you'll be done!

Good luck! That would be a great birthday present to give to yourself!

Just keep going. If I was telling the story of me writing, the title would be something like 57 Ways Not to Write a Novel. Seriously. Queries are even worse. I screw up all the time and go back and fix it later. I like the Thomas Edison comparison. When asked how he felt about his failure rate (and it was up in the tens of thousands), he said something to the effect of: I haven't failed. I've discovered ways not to make a light bulb.