75 Day Writing Challenge

Posted by Jen on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 @ 12:13 am

I’ve been having trouble forging ahead on this first draft of SHATTER ME. I remember last year, I had similar trouble with CLASH until I signed up for 70 Days of Sweat (with Sven!). Six and a half weeks later, I had a completed draft. The challenge somehow got the ball rolling, maybe because I set a deadline for myself.

Unfortunately, the Sven challenge isn’t going on again right now, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do one anyway, right? So, I’ve decided to challenge myself to complete this draft in 75 days–by May 12th. I have an estimated 65k words left to go on this first draft. That’s less than 870 words per day which is way under what I can typically write. Why am I shooting low? Because I’ll most likely work on my second draft of CLASH on some days so I can finally finish that one up, and my agent may need me to do a short second round of revisions in the next couple of weeks. It’s a goal that is doable, and if I skip a day, it won’t be difficult to catch up. I think that was the beauty of the Sven challenge. I didn’t feel overwhelmed.

If anyone else wants to join in, feel free. I’ll be doing progress reports every week on Mondays. (For myself more than anything else since posting progress motivates me for some reason.) But if you’re working on a WIP, want to pop in, and comment about your own progress, that’d be a cool addition. I’d love to have other writers join me in the challenge, but this was a random spur-of-the-moment thing so I don’t know if anyone else will be up for it.

So, starting now, here’s my status. I’ve got 5k down. About 65k to go!

SHATTER ME: YA UF
5,032 / 70,000 Words (7%)

*Thanks to seabamirum for the awesome photo.

Comments

By Dan on February 28th, 2009 at 8:06 am

Good luck! As always, I’m pulling for you.

By Sara Raasch on February 28th, 2009 at 10:22 am

*waves pompoms*

You can do it!

By Amity on February 28th, 2009 at 10:42 am

Hi! I thought I’d share what’s boosted my writing — a group called SAW (Shutup And Write). Highly recommended for anyone with local writer friends.

Two mornings a week my friends and I meet at each others’ houses. We have 30-min of ‘talk-shop’ and muffins. Then our designated ‘town crier’ announces it’s 9:30 and time to shut up. We write, no talky, for two hours. At 11:30, the town crier asks if we’re in the zone and want to continue, or not. Once we’re done, we each read a page or so of what we wrote, no criticism allowed. Then we go home.

I write about 3k these mornings. There’s something about being with other dedicated writers with no distractions — like a NaNoWriMo event, with silence. There’s community for a normally lonely profession. No criticism allows creative freedom & safety, esp since these are ROUGH pages. We leave the criticism for our beta readers.

Sadly, I will not be able to join you on your 75-day challenge — I’m in an editing phase of one WIP, and a bit exhausted from writing the rough draft of another WIP. But I wish you the best of luck! I enjoy the blog — keep it up!

By Gretchen on February 28th, 2009 at 1:10 pm

It’s sad that I too need to have a goal in order to finish a damn ms. I’ve got about 60K left on mine, which, theoretically, I should be able to do in 60 days!

Theoretically.

By GoblinGirl on February 28th, 2009 at 2:20 pm

Jen, I’m totally in!! My goal is to finish my middle-grade novel. I’m 1/2 way through and know how it’s going to end, just have to will myself to make the time!! (that’s what works for

By Jen on February 28th, 2009 at 2:24 pm

Thanks Dan and Sara!

Amity - That sounds really cool. I’d love to find a group of writers to do writing sessions with.

Gretchen - Something about giving myself a deadline works. Yay for joining!

GG - Yay! Glad you’re in!

By Andrew on February 28th, 2009 at 4:58 pm

Sounds like an idea - my main problem is I’m easily sidetracked onto new projects whenever I get new ideas. Really need to set a goal and stick to it.