Still not sure you want to take part in the 100k in 100 days challenge? Doing a bit of mental arithmetic, I’ve worked out what you can do with those 100k words. I should warn you, my arithmetic is rubbish, hence me keeping it fairly simple.
200 flash stories of 500 words each
100 stories of 100o words each.
50 stories of 2000 words each.
25 stories of 4000 words each
10 long short stories of 10,000 words each
20 short stories of 5000 words each
One 100k novel
Two 50k novellas
Three 30k novellas, plus a 10k story
100 articles of 1000 words each
50 articles of 2000 words each
(I don’t think articles get much longer than that)
Two 50k non-fic books
A 100k non-fic book
100 guest blog posts of 1000 words each (perhaps really hoping here? But that could be another challenge for you!)
Erm … a lot of poems (that’s where my arithmetic fell down on account of poems not being uniform length but I’m sure the poets amongst you can work it out).
Or you could mix it up with any of the above. If you get stuck on the novel, work on a short story. If you get stuck on the short stories, start the opening chapter to a novel or write a bit of poetry. If you’re a non-fic writer who gets stuck, try your hand at writing a short story. Every word counts as long as it’s creative writing.
I realise that a lot of you work full time and have other responsibilities, but even if you can’t do the 1000 words a day, perhaps you can do a lot in the time you do have spare. It adds up to 7000 words a week, and how you distribute those words over the week is entirely up to you. I’m hoping to do most of my writing on a Tuesday, on account of it being the day I’ve got the house all to myself. You can also include writing exercises (i.e. flash pieces to get the juices flowing) as long as it’s creative.
Having said that, no one is going to be checking. The challenge will work on an honour system. I don’t see any reason why someone should lie about their progress given that there’s no real prize here. Also, this isn’t a race. You don’t have to worry about being the quickest. All that matters is that by 9th April 2012, you’ll have written 100k words.
Just to be clear, we won’t be critiquing work in this challenge. We’ll all be too busy writing. But if you want to buddy up with critique partners, that’s entirely up to you.
During the course of the challenge I will try and post prompts every day for anyone who might be struggling. You can do what you want with these prompts. Use them to inspire a poem, story or article, or use them in a chapter of your novel. I’m hoping you’ll all help me with that, by supplying your own prompts and I’ll list them all.
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May not get started until 2nd Jan, but will definitely take part and write as much as I can over the 100 days! Looking forward to it – I made so many friends during MYWYN!
Hope NaNo is going ok!
2nd January’s fine. You can always catch up.
Nano not going bad. I’m still a bit ahead, though it feels a bit like trying to knit fog at the moment.
Hi Sally, it’s good that you’ve given people a good few weeks to work into this challenge. Even though I tend to write by the seat of my pants, I always find that if I plan, even only in my head, that the word flow when I do sit down is much better than if I just start with an empty head. I know this sounds obvious, but ‘cooking’ a plot and characters, allowing them to swill around in your brain (and for those of you who make extensive notes, on paper) for some time before actually getting down to it really helps. I guess it’s like a builder getting together the wood, concrete, bricks, paint, architects plan, scaffolding etc and then finally having a starting date. Naff analogy I know, but I have been guilty in the past of having simply the germ of an idea and starting with that. That goes fine for a while, but it can lead to a seriously saggy middle!
I work the same, Cara. I have to have a solid idea and can never just sit down in front of a blank screen hoping the ideas will come. I seldom plan, apart from maybe writing a brief summary. The only novel I ever did plan properly for is all of two chapters long and I’ve never gone back to it…
I will be trying to include some writing exercises every day on here to get the juices flowing.
Quite looking forward to this
I’m glad to have the thinking time, too. I plan to try a bit of crime writing, so even though I don’t want to work everything out (I’d rather it comes out in the writing, if that makes sense) I might sketch out a couple of characters, and a write lots of notes.
I’m in! I had so much fun with MYWYN (I even went ahead and published that little guy!) that I would forward for an other challenge.
I wanted to do short stories this time around (about 5000 words a week), so I could totally add some flash pieces to it. It would fit with my goals for the new year.
So, we have december off? Awesome!
Yes, you can have December off, Catherine. If Christmas will let you
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I think it’s a great idea to start a new novel, but I have to finish a novel that I’m almost half way through (42,000 words), so as the writing I need to do now needs lots of date accuracy and research, I must leave the challenge until next time. But well done and good luck to everyone who does it.
No worries, Madalyn. You are welcome to add any words that you add to your existing novel, but don’t force it if you’d rather just concentrate on the one thing.