September Challenge – Write (More) Every Day!

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Magnus

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Hello and welcome! This is a thread open for anyone who wants to start, maintain, or build up a writing habit.

I was surprised and happy to find that several others not only participated in my Write Every Day thread for August but also found it helped them write more!

So, we're doing it again! The basis for the idea is that repeating something daily – even in small doses – means you build a habit that you'll find harder and harder to avoid (you can read more about that in this blog post I wrote).

So introduce yourself and your goals (if you want to) and try to post every day in September! It's entirely up to you how much and in what way you participate.

A few tips and reminders:


  • Set achievable goals – I can't stress enough how important this is. Habits build over time, so look at your current writing habit and set a goal to increase it a little bit, in word count, time, and/or frequency.

  • Write every day – even if it's just a few sentences. It reinforces the habit.

  • Mix it up – Try different types of goals, different times of the day, different tricks to reward or motivate yourself. A good habit is what works for you, not someone else. For example, some people find it works best with a set time. Others – like me – prefer a conditional habit (my current goal is to write a little bit after breakfast). And so on.

  • Be patient – It takes a long time to build a strong habit and you'll always be facing new challenges. So get used to constantly adapting and you'll be better prepared for jumping the next hurdle.

  • You can't fail – When you don't hit your goal, your job is figuring out why. When you do, you can find methods that help you do better the next day. If you share your speculations on why you missed your goal in this thread, others will be able to help out with tips and tricks!

Good luck, and see you on the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] of September!
 
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D.L. Shepherd

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Magnus already knows that I'm in, since I joined in his August "Write Every Day" challenge. I'm working on a new novel and I needed some motivation to "sit butt in chair" and his last thread was really helpful in holding me accountable. Thanks Magnus!!

My writing goals for Sept are:
(1) Work on my novel at least 5 days per week
(2) Write at least 4,000 words per week

I'm currently just over 11,000 words in my novel and hope to cross 12,000 before the holiday weekend, so I have a lot of work ahead of me if I hope to finish the first draft before the end of 2017. Hoping this new thread will help get me that much closer.
 

Esmae Tyler

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Hullo! I think I missed the start of this thread for August and skipped by it somehow until the middle of the month. But I am totally on board for September; I too have a personal goal of finishing the draft of my current manuscript by the end of 2017, and having squandered so much of 2017 already the only way I'm going to get across that line is by (surprise) writing every day.

My writing goals are similar:

1 - write every day
2 - ideally, write the 660 words per day I need to have enough words by December 31st
2.b - hopefully not have to resort to writing poo haiku to get those words (even though that made me laugh)
 

underpope

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I came in halfway through August, so I didn't sign up for that challenge. But now September looms, so I'm signing up for this one!

My goals for September are:

1. Start outlining whatever I'll be working on for NaNoWriMo;
2. Write 250 words per day;
3. Continue revising Padma, my end-of-the-universe novel; and,
3. Finish "Anamet", my kaiju story.

Good luck to all of us!
 
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Magnus

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Nearly time!

My goals are:

1. Write every day after breakfast.
2. Look for ways to focus on a single project (while not losing the joy of creative freedom!)
3. Increase my average daily word count (my total for August was about 300 words per day).

Oh, and to make it tougher, I'll only count creative writing towards my word count from now on. Because that's where I want to grow.

Welcome back D.L, and welcome Esmae and underpope!
 
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D.L. Shepherd

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Hi Esmae and underpope...so nice of you to join us! I'm officially starting September with 12,554 words already written in my WIP. My goal is to more than double that by the end of this month's challenge, but I'm starting late because I'm taking a break for the long holiday weekend. See you all sometime in the middle of next week!
 

AlexaMaria

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Hello. I've seen the August Challenge and I actually planned to do this in September (I only joined by the end of the month), but since this came up in here, I thought... Well... Why not putting all out? It makes you work harder, after all. So, my goals for September are:

1) Write 500+ words/day for TSW (to finish my top priority novel until March 2018, I only need these many.) I haven't put a higher number because even if some days I can write up to 4000 words/day, after that I won't write for days or weeks on this novel. This will make me be productive without worrying about not having enough time (since I also have a job and other projects that take a lot of my time).
2) Outline 2 of my books (one fantasy, one non-fiction). I really need to get this done by the end of the month, because I got lost in too many details and ideas I didn't wrote down.
3) Draw maps and house plans for top priority novel and the other fantasy book. (For the moment, I only need some rough sketches of a few places, but I always procrastinated when I needed to do them)
4) Organize my work in progress folder and papers.
5) Do research for my non-fiction book and organize it according to chapters. (some of it at least, to help me get started)

The only way I'll fail at this, will be, I'll either get distracted or I'll procrastinate. Hopefully, I won't be doing any of these. :))

Good luck to everyone else!
 

Magnus

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Day 1
A bit of a rough start, but I was expecting that as I knew I'd have a busy day. No writing in the morning, but I've edited my main WIP and added about 50 words. It will be a great relief when I can pick up my new glasses, hopefully next week, as it's frustrating to get tired just from reading.
 

Fruitbat

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Thanks for keeping this going, Magnus.

Real life interfered at the end of August but I am back. My goal is to work on my novel for at least an hour and half a page per day. I'll probably do other writing too but my main goal here is my novel's progress.
 
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Esmae Tyler

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756 words here, so a hair over my target goal....

...mostly because today I discovered that have the really baffling ability to write scenes that are all the same length. I have twelve so far in this folder. Five are between 560 and 670 words. Five are between 1,000 and 1,200 words. There's one extreme outlier at 2,360. I guess there's something to be said for consistency, maybe.
 

Layla Nahar

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Day 1 - Wrote about 1 paragraph. But feeling good because I couldn't do it in my usual morning routine.

This month my writing goal is very modest. Write every day. No amount target. Just write. I need to get a better job, and so I have another thing to do everyday - something for my job hunt. Either write and send a job letter, or work on my portfolio. & I dread everything to do with this in so many ways, just thinking about it is a big weight. So if I can just only write - because the dread and anxiety about the job situation is so heavy that normally when I have to take care of something like this, everything else goes out the window. So if I can just keep doing anything, I'll be very happy.
 

Magnus

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Day 2
Better. Failed the start of the day but I picked myself up and got stuff done, which on its own is a victory! So I ended up doing some evening writing. I worked on an exercise and wrote some background material for a novel. 400 words. Total word count: 450.

Welcome back, Fruitbat! Well done Esmae and Layla!
 

Esmae Tyler

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Day 2 - 695 words

I was afraid I wasn't going to get anything written today because I had so much trouble getting kids in bed. I had a flash of inspiration that solved two of my current quandaries in one neat rewrite of the same scene I wrote yesterday, but it's still 695 new words and I think they work better this time around.

Even thinking about writing can be useful, especially if it's thinking about the writing you mean to be doing.
 

Collie

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My goals for September are:

* write 1,000 words every weekday
* revise first three chapters of ms1


Day 1:
slogged out words across multiple projects. Nothing is flowing right now and I am in whatever the opposite of the zone is.

Day 2:
Weekend day so no word count goals, though I did fuss in about 100 to ms2
 

Magnus

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Day 3
It's amazing how much more has been getting done around the house since I started this challenge! :D Anyway, finally got some writing done in the evening after several uninspired attempts. I don't think what I got was particularly solid, but it was something. Roughly 400 words, for a total of 850. Still not doing too well with the writing in the mornings. Need to look for other tricks, there!

Well done Esmae, it's always great when something finally falls into place! I think about my stories all of the time. Every now and again, a coin drops, and I have to rush to my notepad.
Welcome to the challenge, Collie!
 

Keithy

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Did a little fiddling around with my MS. Mostly adding notes on bold "what about this... perhaps do this instead..."
 

Collie

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Thanks for the welcome, Magnus!

Day 3
Another weekend day so I'm still not counting words but I probably wrote a few hundred. Mostly I felt relieved that a (very) little bit of fluid storytelling happened after the mess that was last week.
 

Layla Nahar

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welcome Collie - congrats on getting some writing done this weekend :)
Magnus - nice work on the 850!

I did about 220 words over two WIPs for Day 3. (I also wrote and sent a job letter - not officially part of the challenge - but I guess - for me this challenge will be about - doing something for my job search everyday and writing everyday - because so far it's only been one *or* the other...)

ETA: Welcome Keithy - I think you posted while I was still writing mine
 
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Esmae Tyler

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Congrats guys! 3 days down, and all words are good words. Even bits of outlines, even writing letters about employment.

My Day 3 total is 'only' 636, but I'm still in the black for the week. Finished the scene I was writing and didn't really want to go back and pad it with 20-some extra words just to hit my target, so there it stands.
 

Fruitbat

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Yesterday I wrote for an hour and got to 6,017 words total on my novel. I don't remember my starting stats though. I think I'll add to my September goal writing Monday-Friday only because weekends have been hectic.
 

Mary Love

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Can I jump in? So far I'm holding true to my 1k words a day goal. I've gotta finish this rewrite to empty the slate for NaNo!
 

Magnus

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Day 4
I'm already reconsidering one (possibly two) of my monthly goals, so there's adaptation for you! Writing in the morning is excellent some mornings, but terrible others (especially if I feel pressured by work). So, I'll have to revisit that. So I'll be looking for other ways to handle it, for now. Hitting a word count is also bad some days, as I don't want to feel like I'm failing the days I am revising or digging into background work. I'll still keep an eye on my word count, as it's a decent indicator of monthly writing progress, if not for daily.

Today I've revised and worked background stuff, though I did end up writing around 200 words (most of which I then cut out, along with a bunch of other stuff). So my monthly total is 1050.

Welcome Mary, you can jump in at any time! Good luck with the writing!
 
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Layla Nahar

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Nice work, Esme,
Welcome back, Fruitbat! Congrats on the progress :)
& Welcome Mary Love
Congrats on the words, Magnus

I got in about 240 words on one WIP for Day 4.
 
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