On Writing Challenges

As I've mentioned many times by now, I am participating writing 1.2 million words in 2012. Many members of my writing group are attempting to write 1 million words. Because 1 million words is roughly equivalent to 11-17 novels (60 to 90,000 words each), we all need some mini-challenges to keep us going.

There are some official ones, like Script Frenzy— write 100 pages of script in April, or FAWM— write 14 songs in February.

But others are self-imposed— finish editing NaNo'09's novel, or rewrite NaNo'10's. 

Still others are not writing challenges— we're including reading challenges in 2012's resolutions (ranging from 30 to 150 books), as well as other life goals. (One person is walking 1000 purposeful miles and starting up her business again.)

I've undertaken… 28 challenges for 2012 and am contemplating two more. You can see them all here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f6mW7zi4PXzMbncHDRgwh40LDpKsgWGYKUkhy_iOL1g/edit?hl=en_US

The list isn't completed yet— I'm thinking of adding in a couple more things as I find them… and I'm already planning on refining my French (so I can actually speak it without starting to talk in Spanish).

It will be very exciting to see how many of these challenges I can actually complete. I'm estimating that the short story writing alone will be 366,000 to 1 million words, depending on short story length. 

The problem is that in December I already have a big goal— finish 13 books and write 110,000 more words in December.  This might lead to burnout, which I'm dreading. I had it all through November. I'm not sure if I can do it— if anything, writing will be set aside. I can always keep going with words in January and February, but I can't finish those 13 books in 2012.

One of the challenges I've undertaken is the Write Your World challenge. While discussing the various challenges we were each undertaking, one of my friends in the writing group said, "Maria, I just invented the perfect challenge for you."

"What is it?" I asked, "The 'see how many challenges you can actually finish' challenge?"

"No," said ktbarrow, "the 'write 500 words a day about the world around you' challenge."

I stared at the screen, my heart sinking. "Damn." I said, "I have to take that. It's too awesome not to."

"Awesome." Said kt. I grinned.

I went to blogger, made a new blog called http://wywamino.blogspot.com, and started writing. 

The rules I've imposed on myself for the WYW challenge are:

1. Write 500 words a day.

2. Posts must be at least 490 words. They cannot be more than 510 words.

3. Planning for posts is acceptable. Taking notes is acceptable. Anything else isn't.

I'll be updating the WYW blog every day we have internet connection, and hopefully I'll be able to keep finding new things to post about! So far I have… too many ideas to count.

(This post is 496 words long)