September Challenge – Write (More) Every Day!

I need to get back on the edits (second round, one week deadline), and last night I was too sad to write (said goodbye to my best friend here for the past 5 years, ah, expat life), but today I did manage 546 words in the manuscript during some downtime. Tonight when I get home, I'll hopefully get started on the edits of my novella.

Layla - Nice progress! And I'm glad to meet another yarn-worker.
D.L. - 100 forced words is still better than 0 words, even if you go back and revise them all later. Hugs!
Fruitbat - Congrats on the great progress!!
Keithy - Keep your head up, it'll come! (And you'll remember what you did, haha)

Day 28: 112 words in 2 WIPs. I had a housemate call in the morning, had a chance to write(!) went to work, got home, took care of some housemate business, and sent a job email. I'm exhausted - too tired to make dinner.


I hate those days, DL. sometimes we do just have to wait it out... I'm sorry to hear about your cat. I love animals.

ETA: just missed Katy! Congrats on those 500+ words, K!

Day 27 - The page won.
Day 28 - 488 words. Alas my hot streak came to a rapid end and it's back to trying to squeeze water out of stone. I'm surprised I got that many words today - but overall the last two have felt pretty much like extremely wasted time. I'm still about 7,000 words short of my original goal for the month, which wouldn't have been too ambitious if *gasp* I had actually managed to write every day.

My dearly beloved husband actually tried to pitch a concept for a picture book to me yesterday. Because obviously what I should be writing "for now" is PBs, because those are so much easier to write and sell than full on novels, and pay out so much more quickly. (Can you read the sarcasm in this line? If not go back and apply liberally. I wanted to throw a picture book at him. Board books do more damage than paperbacks.)

Hang in there guys. Writing is hard. Creating something from nothing is magic, pure and simple. And sometimes there just isn't enough in the reservoir to make the magic. Only two days left until October though. You've got this!

OK I'm off to Spain tomorrow for a week so no more writing (apart from thinking) until next Saturday. Which will be October, so I'll see you all in the October thread.

But I did a little reading and note-taking today. Something every day.

Esmae - 488 words - words is words!! But I do hate the feeling of squeezing the last out of a tube of toothpaste...
Kiethy - indeed - something every day!


Day 29. I wrote! 100 words in 1 WIP. Today is a tough day - I am strung out on stress! but I managed to look on the job boards, pick a couple and I started writing one job letter. Whew.

Still not in a good place, but I managed to work on my novel yesterday. Added just over 1,000 words.

I took a day off from even trying to write yesterday. The daily headaches have been going on for over a month and I think I've hit the chronic pain wall. Woke up with half my head in a vise grip today so I think today is out too.

Hope you feel better soon, Collie.

1,500 words for me today.

DL, Fruitbat - nice work!
& Collie, likewise, I hope you feel better soon

Magnus, so glad to see the OCTOBER challenge up there!

Day 30 - my high for the month - 688 words in 3 WIPs! My total output for the month was 7560, and I took two 'skip' days. My average words per day was about 250. Feeling pretty good!

Thanks y'all, for being there

That's a great number for the month, Layla. Every little bit does add up!

Day 30 - The End
Didn't get anything written yesterday. Or today. And so my total for the month is 19 days of writing vs. 11 days of not writing. It's only 5 PM, I guess I could crank out a couple of words to make that a 2:1 ratio but meh. The fatigue is real. That got me 12,332 words for the month, at an average pace of 411 words per day. I would've added another 4520 if I'd managed to keep that pace across the 11 days I didn't do anything... which would've put me to about 17k for the month, which is a whole lot closer to my original 20k goal. I'll probably kick myself mentally for this for a while and then try to use it as the benchmark for October.


Congrats to everyone for making it across the finish line. See you all next month!

Collie...I sure hope you feel better soon. Chronic headaches can be crippling.

And Magnus...glad you are finally feeling human again. The flu is no fun either.

Layla & Fruitbat...nice numbers to end the month with!

Esmae...nice total for the month. You did a great job! You can always try for 20K next month.

I managed another 800 or so today, making my total for September 10,128. I only wrote 7,843 words in August, so that was an improvement, but still not as much as I had planned to write this month. Hoping October will be a better month all around, for all of us. See you over in the next thread...