December Challenge - Write Every Day!

I'm going to take one more shot at this. I've got the "write every day" part down. Now I want to increase my output. Last month I established my average word count per day falls between 200-500. Let's see if I can increase that.

I'm also going to keep track of how many times I just "write something" and how often I work on a designated project. In short, how badly am I goofing off. The goal is to increase my daily word count on things I could conceivably sub somewhere. That's what I need to knuckle down on.

Tell me about it.

Woo!

I'll be doing my 3/3:
1 - add words to my WIP
2 - one action of self-care or responsibility
3 - one action to increase my income/earning power

I let myself take one skip day a week in each category if I want to.


For newbs to this thread, when I returned to writing after 14 months of being unable to write* I decided that I would write every day - in the face of whatever life threw at me to deal with. At first it was just, as the thread says, write something every day - not to judge what I had written, or how much or anything but just to be grateful I had written at all. (Even before my 14 month break the previous 10 years of my writing habit had patches of months and weeks here and there when, if Life got overwhelming, writing went out the window. Eventually I came up with a little checklist of 3 (the magic #) So that's the story of my 3/3)

*the very thought of writing filled me with dread.

Thanks for starting the thread, Magnus.

Layla: Same. I took 27 dread-filled months off.

As with November, gotta get this revising thing sorted.

Well, my goal for October and November was to revise Book I. In November, I revised to the tune of 70,416 words, leaving about 40K to go. Or, 27 chapters down, 19 to go. I'm looking at a one month to draft, three months to revise pattern that I have got to improve on.

December Goals

1) Finish revising Book I
2) Run revisions through an editing (proofreading) app
3) Check in on this thread every day

Good luck, folks. Happy December!

Relieved to see others giving themselves time to step away. That was so hard for me to accept. There's so much pressure to write every single day. Breathers are important for gaining perspective on any WIP.

December goals:
1) Finish MS 1 line edits, proofread, & finalize query package for January
2) Edit and revise MS 2 twice & send to CPs
3) Outline & start drafting new WIP

Probably won't get to do much of #3, but I like to set big goals. It tricks me into thinking I'm procrastinating.

Sooo, I'll put out there the goal that I'm already working on (it's a 100 days goal): writing the first book of a series, just the first draft.

Goals:

1. Writing 1000 words a day of the actual book
2. Still writing my daily 350 words of my wattpad project
3. Ending up with 32000 words at the end of the month

So, my main struggle will totally be the fact that either I write (and do more than a 1000 words usually) or I don't write at all, or just one sentence. Basically I’ll have to daily push through the first paragraph and everything will go as planned. Hopefully.

My December goals:
1. Polish Short #1 and get it ready for submission.
2. Read book for research on Short #2. Begin editing if practicals.
3. Formulate editing plan for novel.

And, as always, this is not excluding any new stories that might jump out, grab me by the throat, and demand to be written.

Good luck, everyone!

Day 1 - 237 words. Could be more later.

And we're off! Those words went toward the book I'm working on, so I hit two goals already today. Auspicious start!

My FMC is turning out to be a bit of a bad girl. I suppose that's to be expected from a woman who can shapechange into a rattlesnake. I'm not sure how appropriate that may be for a romance heroine, though. Guess I'll find out. I'm using Batman and Catwoman as my role models, so it might work.

Day 1
Finished drafting the other POV scene. Revised a scene and a half before some sort of outdoor festival started a few streets over. Many things, I can work through. A Lynyrd Skynyrd cover band shaking my floors is not one of them. Done for the day.

Pterofan: Nice start. Congrats.

Magnus: Work got done.

Honk honk, here we go again ...

Pterofan: Good start! Yeah, I'm all for more bad girls. Female characters rarely get the same leeway as their male counterparts

Magnus: 30 mins is still a good chunk of time though!

WGough: Urgh, festivals ... people having fun en masse. Hope you manage to block some of it out.

I managed another cheeky 1k today. Took me a long time, but I got there in the end. I'm on a bit of a mini roll just now ... the 1k thing seems to work for me for short periods of time. I'm gonna try and keep this run going for as long as possible.

Day 1: Decent bit; 5 miles; rain, rain GO AWAY. Srsly.

My goal for Dec. is to beat last month's total of 14,000 words or maybe write everyday. It would be super awesome if I did both.

Day 1: 619 words. I was 100% sure I wouldn't write anything today, but I sat down and did it!

Goals: Edit more than last month. 5 pages edited a day would be great but with finals and the holidays soon, I'll have to just try my best.


Dec 1

Edited 5 pages.



Pterofan: I think those kinds of characters are way more fun. So enjoy it.

Magnus: 30 minutes is great. I can't go ten without being distracted.

WGough: Yikes that must have been one loud band.

April: Any stretch of words is great. Especially when their 1K

Moon: 14k is awesome!

Ptero - congrats on the auspicious start!

Congrats on that 30 minutes of writing, Magnus

Ogod - I feel your pain Gough. & congrats on that scene

WTG for sure on the 1k April!

Nice work, Moon

WTG on the 5 pages, starry


Day 1


I took a skip day!

Day 1

Draft - 177

Polished - bits and pieces across the board

Edited - deleted all my part pages except the prologue. I didn’t feel a 20+- chapter book justified parts.

Research - Major drug cartels in 1985 (this is a redo). What a DEA uniform worn on a raid.

WGough - I’ve been mostly doing the same. I’m ¾ way into a chapter that I can’t get into to.

Moon - WTG on the 619 word count!

Starry - WTG on doing something.

Ptero - Congrats on the word count and sailing into a new book.

Nothing so far. Must be Sunday. But the laundry's done.

What I have planned for dinner will take 20 minutes to cook. I'm going to use that as my timer and write then.

Day 2
Revised one scene, 2004 words. Drafted 861 words of a new scene.

April: 1K is awesome.

The Second Moon: Nice work.

starrystorm: Way to meet your goal!

Layla: Yay for skip days!

Cindyt: December is off to a meh start. Looks like you're getting a ton done!

Pterofan: Go writing sprints!

Magnus: Way to slack!

Have a great week everybody!

OK I'm back... in some shape or form. I've spent some days in doubt about what to write and whether I can. Yesterday I decided that I had two versions of the story, depending on who the secondary characters are, then realized there was not much difference between the two, so I will write one version and fiddle with it later. Today I told myself that if I wanted to call myself a writer, I would have to write something. So I will write something.

But Christmas is here, so I have to put some decorations up.

Day 2: 230 words. Not good, but I did something at least.

Way to keep at it Cindy (polishing is hard)


Hey Ptero, how that dinner was productive


hey Magnus - hope that was some good slack


Nice work Gough


Nothing like writing if you want to write Keithy


Nice, Moon






Day 2


WIP 1 page


R/SC - earning service, crafting, tidying


$$ - got the cable I was waiting for & tested my gear for one of my projects. I couldn't get it to work. (the mic & the cable are good. Back to the drawing board for a bit)

Down, but not out! Last week was a total dud to end it all, but school's presence is ever so slowly fading out of my schedule, and now I've got a serious word deficit to make up by December 31st to reach 140k.

This month is pretty straight forward, I want to write a total of 15,353 words at a minimum.

Annndd nothing else. No blog, no queries, a bit of schoolwork when I need to, but I'm trying to put all my eggs in the writing basket this month.

If not for the holidays (and my semester lasting through the 19th), this would be an easy goal. Now, I'm planning for the worst, assuming that Christmas Eve and beyond I'll have no time to write a single word. That might not be true, but 'might' isn't enough to plan for.

So this weekend I got all my schoolwork out of the way, and tomorrow I'm gonna start. 5 day writing weeks are back for me! And hopefully, I can push through the wall I've hit smacked against last week.

Good luck everyone! Let's kill it this month!

Day 2

Draft - 318

Polished - Bits and pieces

Edited - The outcome of the first drug raid.

Research - Watched Season 1, Epi 1 of Miami Vice to soak up some more Miami feeling, and plan to base like a loose tooth a drug raid on the one show where Crockett’s partner, Eddie, is blown up in a car bomb.

WGough - I am getting a ton done, just a meh word count. My number rose slightly today.

Layla - WTG on the whole page!

Createspace is merging with Kindle Publishing. I like the new options.