Hey Everyone!
Alright, so it has been two weeks since I posted the start to my 80,000 Word Count in 10 Weeks Challenge! (If you did not read that post, you can read it here!) Today, I am keeping myself accountable and letting you know how it’s going.
After two weeks of writing every day, (well, okay, ALMOST every day, I took one day off for my one year anniversary) my goal word count was 16,000 words. I have a grand total of . . .
16,160 Words
To be more precise, I am in my fourth chapter. I have 54 pages and 16,160 words.
I am pretty pleased with how I have been able to stay on track with this project. I sometimes believe the start of any new project/challenge is the easiest because we are filled with so much passion and energy. I can feel this ebbing as I head into my third week and I know that this project will only require more from me as I continue forward. I won’t lie, somedays, the words just flowed, and other days, well, other days I was Ron . . .
My goal is to be able to keep up this pace for the next eight weeks by continuing some tips and tricks I have been implementing along the way:
- Keeping a notepad handy so that I can jot down any ideas
- Try plotting out the next chapter ahead of time to refer to when I need direction
- Creating character boards on Pinterest (for fun and to keep my creativity flowing!)
- Stopping at a certain point (THIS ONE IS KEY)
- Once I hit my desired word count for that day, I wrap up my current thoughts and even if I have an idea for where I am going next, I jot down the general ideas (so I don’t forget them) but then I leave them for tomorrow. I’ll be explaining in an upcoming blog post why this tactic works!
Anyhow, that is it for my first update! Thank you to everyone supporting me; I hope to be able to share more about this project (plot, title, etc.) SOON!
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KaylaAnn 
Good for you! I did NaNoWriMo last year and it about kicked my butt.
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Thank you, Laci! I’ll be honest, I’ve always been interested in NaNoWriMo but with it being in November and me being an educator, it’s pretty much not in the cards ha! Summer time is my writing time!
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That makes sense. I’m not sure who decided that doing in a month with a big holiday was a good idea anyway. I almost didn’t finish due to Thanksgiving! It was a LOT of late nights.
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Ha, I am sure!
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I also write in sections and wrap up when I get there. I am interested to learn why this works for you. I know why it works for me.
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Well now I’m interested in why it works for you, ha! I’m working on that blog post today so hopefully it will be ready for posting next week and I can hear why it works for you too!
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I’ll look out for it.
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Best of luck!
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Thank you! Today was a harder day to write, but I hit my minimum at least.
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You’re welcome.
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Get it, girl.
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Thank you!
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Thank you for the insightful advice on progressing with a novella or novel. I have written and published a number of novels myself. My work has never been as systematic in the first phase of writing, but I end up spending more time correcting structural issues in the editing process. Ultimately, stories come alive in the connection between the author and the reader. It is in the shared imagination, a kind of storytelling ether where the souls of both converge to consume and to enrich the structural and stylistic ingredients of the manuscript, where the words printed on paper actually become living things. The work authors like yourself put into the construct in the beginning adds so much more visceral flesh and blood to that life in the end.
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Hi Michael! And welcome to my blog!
Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. This system I have I have only begun to hone in the last couple of years. I’m finding that it really is my writing style. I love what you say though, “stories come alive in the connection between author and the reader.” I do agree! There is definitely an inherent relationship there because the author must bare their soul in their writing and the reader must be receptive to it. I’m heading over to check out your blog now 🙂
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The author bares her soul, and the reader bares his as well to the extent he allows himself to be vulnerable to the story and captivated by the voice of the storyteller.
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