Works in Progress
First draft:
Editing: The Amulet of Sìochàin
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| February 100 |
| Sunday, 06 February 2011 21:12 |
|
Thanks to the fabulous Kerryn Angell, I'm participating in a new challenge this month. The February 100 is similar to NaNoWriMo, in that it's all about getting yourself into the habit of writing every day - but the goal is much lower, and that's what makes it so brilliant. Write 100 words a day. That's all. See what I mean? I like getting big word counts. I love getting to the end of the day and seeing that I've written a thousand, two thousand, even three thousand words. But I can't do that every day. Life interferes. A hundred words, on the other hand, is always achievable. I usually write pretty quickly. On a good day, a hundred words might only take me a couple of minutes. On a bad day, on a day when I haven't got a clue what I need to be putting down on the page, it can take me a lot longer. But even then, it's doable. And that's the point. When you're aiming higher - let's say NaNoWriMo standards, 1667 words a day - it's easy to feel overwhelmed. If it's getting towards the end of the day and you haven't written anything yet and you know you're supposed to be getting that many words, it can feel like too much. You think you can't do it in the time you have left. So you don't write anything at all. But imagine if you're at that point and can tell yourself you only need a hundred words, and then you can stop. That's tiny. That's less than a third of this blog post. You can do that. And then you can read a book, or watch some television, or just go to bed, knowing that you've got some writing done. And every day you do that, you're closer to really getting that habit going. And once you've written a hundred words, you'll often find yourself writing more instead of stopping, because you're starting to get into the story. It's easy. Come and join us. |
Comments
I have to say that the hardest part of edits is missing that feeling of measurable achievement with daily word counts. Maybe I should allow myself some frivolous writing after editing is done for the day. 100 words is definitely doable!