September Writing Challenge!

I was off to a rough start at the beginning of August. I’d written over 90,000 words in July, but what I had was a disorganized mess. Plus, I felt kind of tired. AND hot weather makes me sluggish. So, I wasn’t terribly hopeful that I’d be a paragon of productivity in August. In the end though, I wrote over 26,000 new words, 6 completely or partially new chapters and edited three chapters. How did I pull this off?

Around the second week, I discovered the August Writing Challenge. It’s a monthly writing challenge started on Twitter in which participants try to write at least 500 words every single day. Or, if you’re in the editing phase, you get equivalent credit for editing for an hour. Though there’s a website, most of the action takes place on Twitter, last month under #AugWritingChallenge. Everyone checks in daily, cheers the others on, and a moderator complies daily lists of winners and weekly lists for perfect attendance. 

I didn’t have perfect attendance this time, but I did pretty well, and wrote on 23 days in August, and 11 in a row through yesterday, a trend I plan to continue. My goal for September is to average 1000 words a day, and edit five chapters (it takes me 5-10 hours to edit one chapter using my massive checklist and going wild with Scrivener’s highlighters).

So, if you could use a little motivation and some friendly cheerleaders, be sure to join us at #SeptWritingChallenge and check out the Facebook page as well. Hope to see you there!

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