Monday, June 18, 2007

100 Words - 100 Days -

Every year my TARA chapter does this Book Challenge. You sign up for in January (through March) and it cost $10.00.

We check in each week through our loop with the pages we’ve written for the past week. Checking in is a must. Even if you have no pages to report. Of course being the TARA sisters that we are you receive congrats on pages written and encouragement for those who have not written that week.

The premise is you will finish your book before the annual Christmas party in December. At that time you’ll bring the book, yes it must be printed out and brought to the party. For everyone who has signed up for the challenge and brings their book they will receive a ticket and the at the end of the party one ticket is drawn. The winner receives half of the money that was required to join the challenge.

I love it. It gives you that motivation needed to write when life gets you bogged down. At least it does for me. Okay it does for several months and then I find that it’s easy to let other things get in the way.

So what do writers do when things start to bog down? We add a new twist. Don’t all writers want new twist? Of course we do. It’s what moves things along for us.

We started the 100 words in 100 days. This means to write at least 100 words everyday for 100 days. I Love This!!!

One hundred words are extremely easy to do. It takes maybe a half a page to get your word count in. However, what I’ve found is once you start typing those 100 words more seem to flow. This is probably due to the fact that I’m not feeling pressured to write x-amount of pages.

I tried to find out who stared this since I know other chapters and writers have used this method and this is what I found.

The first person that google shows to have done this was Jeff Koyen who began this back in 2001.

At any rate I’m not sure which romance author actually started the challenge. I googled and while I found quiet a few who blog on it I couldn’t find where it started in the romance world. If you know add it in the comment section. It’s that enquiring minds want to know thing.

What I do know is this. It works. I’m on day 7. As of yesterday (day six I’ve added over 3000 words.) Of course I would love to say it was a much higher word count but the thing is I’m writing everyday. That’s the most important thing about this new challenge.

Writing Everyday. It becomes a habit. You have to sit down a write. You want to sit down and write. I know Kelly R. this goes right along with the 15 minutes a day. And like I said on our loop, you told me to do this months and months ago.

Oh wait…you thought all writers had to write everyday? That it was something they just had to do. Their fingers itched to play on the keyboard watching the words fly across the screen? Not so much. We are no different than anyone else in any other field. We hit roadblocks, our minds go blank, and yes, sometimes we just don’t feel like it.

So I’ve rambled on enough about this. To sum it up this is a great way to keep your writing going. Really all of us can write 100 words a day. If you’re not doing this then jump on the wagon and write along for the ride. I promise you’ll be happy when we reach the end of the road.

I’ll report on Mondays how I’m doing. Feel free to do the same. So for this week I’ve added a 3482. That doesn’t include writing the blog.

If you’re doing this on your own or through your local chapter tell me how it’s working or not working for you. Let’s keep each other motivated.

7 comments:

Heather said...

Hi, Vicki! I'm doing a 100 Words for 100 Days Challenge, too, and I completely agree with you — it's such a manageable goal that there is almost no pressure.

When it's 10:30 p.m. and the day has gotten away from me, I used to think about writing and mentally throw up my hands because I knew I couldn't get in 1,000 words (which was my previous self-set daily goal). And then I wouldn't write anything.

Now I know I can reach my daily goal, no matter what time it is. 100 words is so doable, and I always end up writing more, just like you said.

Good luck with your 100DC!

Vicki said...

Yeah on doing the 100 in 100. Sounds like you're doing great with it too!

Erica Ridley said...

Fabtastic progress, Vicki!! WTG!!! =)

Vicki said...

Thanks Erica, but OMG you are doing amazing.

Danika Dinsmore said...

Hi Vicki,

I cruised on in from Kristin Nelson's blog. I'm procrastinating writing. Haha.

But seriously, I LOVE this idea. Both parts - the checking in and the 100 day challenge. I think writing every day is a must (they say the more often you do something the more likely you'll stick with the habit).

Have you thought of doing something more official on your blog with this challenge?

I'm known to my friends for my "10-day challenge," which is taking basically anything and doing it for 10 days straight. When I first started querying I sent 10 queries in 10 days. Once I wrote 10 short films in 10 days.

I'm working on a screenplay right now, so it's pages instead of word count (minimum 3 per day until I'm finished). Perhaps I'll come back and see how you're doing!

Vicki said...

Welcome openchannel, I'm glad you stopped by. This 100 words 100 day thing is really great. I finding that I write much more than that each day but if for some reason I just can't give to much time on any given day I know that I can at least get in the 100 words. Its keeping in my story and much easier to know where I'm going.

Writing a screenplay is awesome. I'm not so sure I'd be able to do that. You'll have to let us know how you're doing.

Danika Dinsmore said...

You're right. I think sometimes it all seems too overwhelming to proceed. 100 words a day makes for easy and steady progress... then BOOM, suddenly you're at 1000 and then 10,000 words...

I laughed when I read your reaction to the screenplay, because I thought the same thing about writing a novel. Too many words - I'll never be able to do it!

I actually adapted one of my own screenplays into a novel. I can't imagine doing it the other way around.

I'll start checking in on Mondays here, then, to support progress! Right now, I'm on page 43 (screenplays are usually about 90-100 pages long).