The 90 Day Novel Challenge

I am, and has always been, a lazy person. This of course has seeped into my writing habits, making me a lazy, unproductive writer.

Don't get me wrong, I love writing, crafting stories, plotting and all that; it's the 'Butt in chair' thing that's been eluding me for a (long) while now.

Procrastination is the name of my game, though I'm not proud of it I still allow it to rule my actions and subsequently sabotaging my progress.

It's like shooting yourself in the foot, only instead of bullets I use Youtube, Facebook and other just as deadly sites.

But I have decided to give myself a kick in the arse and hopefully step up my game by issueing a challenge to myself.

I have 90 days to plot, outline and write a first draft of a novel.

I am currently on day five of the challenge, and the first two days I got a decent amount of plotting done, then for a day or so I slacked off a bit and looked for coo pictures I could (try) to make into a cover, though I still kept thinking about how to developing my plot, but away from Scrivener. And yesterday I sat down and began to write the first scene of my nove.

I think I clocked about 780 words - hardly a dent in my 100 000 word goal, but at least I've started.

Today I spent about an hour and a half making a 'not bad' cover to put up on Wattpad as I will be writing this book 'live'. Hopefully I'll get some feedback on plot, characters and the overall feel of the book.

I won't be editing (too much) as I write because there is no way I'll finish in 90 days at my pace, and 'Perfect never finishes'.

If anyone is interested I'm writing a YA Fantasy with plenty of suspense. And though I say fantasy, the fantasy part doesn't really come into play before the last third of the book, and the rest of the series. (Yes, I said series. I have ideas for about two or three more books, but who knows...?) Though I guess it could be called Urban Fantasy for the most part.

Please excuse my ramblings.

Anyway; A young girl is admitted into a psychiatric facility where the doctors seem more dangerous than her own delusions. She must find a way to escape before she disappears, just like the others.

That's my premise for the novel, please feel free to express your opinion wether it sounds enticing or just plain stupid.

Now, please excuse me. I fear I've already taken up enough of your time.

Have a nice day!

Love

Jo

dondomat said:

Yo, good luck with the challenge!
If you want this to be a thread of progress and stuff, perhaps the better place is in "Goals and Accomplishments".
I think when you edit the post there are small numbers in the code around the image, and fiddling with these changes the size.

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Thank you so much. I didn't even know that sub-forum existed.

It's been re-posted in the correct forum. Thanks.

I couldn't find any numbers for the picture though, but thanks anyway.

robjvargas said:

I would instead advise reading all the sticky posts and the Newbie Guide.

Posting your work with one of your very first posts is considered a no-no here. There are whole subforums for it, once you've taken some time to contribute to the community. Basically, that means 50 posts.

Take some time, wander around. Get to know the forums, and let the forums get to know you.

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Thank you for telling me, I deleted the picture. I'll go read the Newbie Guide.

SBibb said:

Good luck with your project. Sounds similar to how NaNoWriMo works, except that you aim for 50,000 words in a month, and you can plot however long you want to before that.

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Thanks. I've thought about NaNoWriMo, but the bare thought of 50 000 words in 30 days are stressing me out. Perhaps I'll try once I'm done with this thing.

Readable Joe said:

30,000 words a month are tough - in all honesty, you're probably not going to make it unless you discipline yourself to bang on a keyboard or writing pad for several hours a day. If you've clocked in 780 words in 2 days, I'd say you're already falling behind.

I know because I tried to do a personal NaNoWriMo in February and clocked in at 35K words for the month (and I was writing every day as well - just not enough in a day).

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To be honest, I gave myself a week to plot and outline, so I'll start the 'heavy' writing today. I'm trying for around 1500 words a day, and that should give me (if everything works according to plan - and it never does) about 45000 words in a 30 day period, let's take away eight days worth of writing to get the weekends 'off' and I'll have about 33 000 words in a month.

Well, one can hope.

I guess my wordcount per day will vary greatly, because on other projects I may have only managed to write two hundred sometimes, and other days I've been able to write almost 5 000 in one go. (Not ofthen though...)

Eli Hinze said:

That's an admirable goal! And while that's difficult to attain, even if you only complete half of what you're aiming for that's still more than most do in 90 days. c;

Good luck!

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Thank you so much.

And I'll do my best to reach my goal, but I'll still be pleased with whatever progress I reach, should I not be able to complete it.

Progress is progress.

benbradley said:

On the other hand, for one NaNoWriMo I was barely over 40k words near the end, and decided to dedicate the last day to it and give it the Good Old College Try. My MC ended up going into a manic phase (I didn't even know he had this problem until then, but his wife had his medicine, but she had to get it to him...), and I wrote 9,700 words in 12 hours and hit 50k 15 minutes before midnight.

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Wow, that's great. Congratulations on completing a NaNoWriMo. That's one long writing session, though.

SBibb said:

Wow... that sounds like a very pulse-pounding writing session. O_O

But congrats on making the goal.

Anyway, back on topic... set whatever goal you feel comfortable achieving, and work toward that goal. In the long run, it'll help you fall into a better pattern of understanding what works for you and doesn't.

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Thank you. That's good advice. I haven't really tried structuring my work to that degree and taking the time to notice what does work. I admit that my 100 000 word goal is a big one, but I also feel that if I don't force myself to work, I'll keep doing what I've always have been, and that hasn't worked out too well in the past.

dangerousbill said:

The first step is to admit you have a problem.

The bad news is that there are 11 more steps.

DB

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Yeah... you don't happen to have a manual I can borrow, do you?