September 29, 2010

I want to check in with you writers who are doing the “Grab 15″ from Habit #1 and the 100-Day Challenge. How are you coming with “chunking down” your goals into tiny slices you can accomplish in 20-minute segments of time? (Leave an update in the comments.)

It reminded me of a blog post from two years ago, and I’m going to run it below because it goes along with our daily writing challenge.

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I’m a sucker for daily reminders from various websites. I get writing reminders, fitness reminders, and blog notices. Today in a couple of fitness emails I realized the solution to a writing problem I have this morning.

First, there was an email from SparkPeople on getting fit called “Success is an Attitude.” A woman wrote: “I plan to lose 50 pounds over a year. I am not setting myself up for any big disappointments by trying to lose too much too fast. Every day is a new day. Every day can be a successful day.” Smart lady, I thought.

Then I read an article from Runner’s World about “The Ten Rules of Weight Loss.” The first rule said, “To lose 10 pounds of body fat a year, you need to eat 100 calories less per day. Cutting too many calories from your daily intake will sap your energy level and increase your hunger, making you more susceptible to splurging on high-calorie foods.”

Parallels with Writing

Ah-ha! Do you see a parallel with writing? I sure do. My natural tendency is to get behind schedule, grit my teeth, buckle down, and plan to write 5,000 words every day for two weeks to finish a project. Who am I kidding?

I can maybe keep up that grueling schedule for several days, but soon I’m depleted, with back and head aching, and I want to eat everything in sight and vege out through a couple of chick flicks. Then it takes me a week to make myself write again, thus averaging out my writing to something like 1000 words per day (or less).

Why not just write 500 easy words every single day–or several times a day in 30-minute slices? That would be a breeze! They’d add up, I wouldn’t get that familiar neck and hip pain from sitting too long—and I would meet the deadlines.

Chunk It Down!

I need to take the attitude of the lady who planned to lose fifty pounds by losing one pound per week. A little bit done every day. What was it that she said?

That way every day is a new day. Every day can be a successful day. What a great description of the perfect writing life!

December 16, 2007

In keeping with our December discussion about writing more in 2008, let’s talk about group challenges and friendly contests. (See the list of upcoming challenges at the end of this post.) For several years I’ve heard about National Novel Writing Month (which takes place every November), but this is the first year I’ve participated. The challenge is to write 50,000 words in the month. The National Novel Writing Month website has grown to where thousands of writers worldwide participate. There you’ll find radio pep talks, places to sign up for supportive emails, an email program and profile set-up so you can get to know the other participants (in your home area and around the world), special outside events, hundreds of forums, and more. Each day you post the number of words written that day.

Did I succeed at writing 50,000 new words in November? No, I didn’t. I was gone some and didn’t get a lot done over Thanksgiving weekend. I also started my new novel a bit prematurely and had to take several days out to re-do some plotting. However, I DID manage to write over 19,000 new words on a novel that had been “sitting on the back burner” of my mind for four years. I also revised about 10,000 words of that novel after re-plotting. I hope to participate in NaNoWriMo again next year, but I will spend more time outlining ahead of time so I can hit the floor running on November 1.

If you missed NaNoWriMo last month, are you stuck on your own till next November? Not at all! They have a page called I wrote a novel–now what? There you will find other NaNoWriMo challenges and spin-off challenges for throughout the year. I’ll list a few of them below. (You can find others at the link above for writers of films, comics, and songs.) Read through them, think about your writing projects for 2008, and choose several challenges. These are really motivating, whether you are working with a contract deadline or not. They are especially helpful if you are trying to meet a personal deadline. Both the challenge and companionship are worth a million bucks!

Which challenges below will you be signing up for?

NaNovFinMo – National Novel Finishing Month (December). Goal: 30,000 words.
JaNoWriMo – January Novel Writing Month (January). Goal: 50,000 words, or whatever goal you set.
NaNoEdMo – National Novel Editing Month (March). Goal: Commit to 50 hours of novel editing. JulNoWriMo – July Novel Writing Month (July). Goal: 50,000 words for a new or unfinished manuscript.
Book in a Week – (Begins on the Monday of the first full week of each month, lasts one week). Goal: Write a novel.
NaNoMangO – The artist’s alternative to NaNoWriMo (November). Goal: Draw 30 pages of sequential art in one month.
AugNoWriMo – August Novel Writing Month (August). Goal: Write a novel in one month.
NaNoPubYe – National Novel Publishing Year (Year-Round). Goal: Get that NaNoWriMo novel ready for publication!