I started out November a new challenge to write 50,000+ words in the month. I’ve posted my progress on twitter, Facebook, Google+ and my challenge page so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that I met my challenge.
54,165 words of new fiction!
That includes finishing one novel, starting another, and writing three stories.
I didn’t miss any days, so I’ve continued my writing streak now for forty-five days and have actually written over 75,000 words since the streak started.
And you know what? Challenges work for me. They motivate me to stay focused and keep working. I posted before about three powerful words. Create. Share. Repeat. This challenge definitely helped with the “create” part of that equation.
I have an exciting new plan for the “share” part. Pretty soon I’ll expose my plans.
In the meantime I’m going to continue at the same pace. That’s the whole “repeat” part of the plan. I’ll write at least 50,000 more words this month. As always I’ll post periodically on twitter, Facebook, Google+ and my challenge page. If you want to see how I’m doing add me to your circles, follow me, like me, friend me, or subscribe. Whatever works.
![Love, [unpronounceable] by Ryan M. Williams](http://www.ryanmwilliams.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Cover1-200x300.jpg "Love, [unpronounceable] by Ryan M. Williams")
Wonderful! Challenges are great to keep one on track, but I always hate hearing about the challenges others have taken. Makes my own seem so small. Of course, our lives are different and we can only do what we have the time and energy to do. I don’t know if I could do 50,000-word monthly challenges, but I bet I could do 40,000 words.
Congrats!
Yep, we’ve each got to figure out what works for us. I’d always thought I did pretty good as far as producing words – then I went to the master class with Kris and Dean and learned I could do a lot more than I would have thought! But I do better when I set myself a clear challenge and write every day.
I’ve heard others talk about Kris and Dean’s Master Class in the same way. What do they do that shows you how to write more? Is it a secret you can reveal?
It’s an intensive experience, but basically they give you an impossible amount of work to do and expect you to get it done. And you do, or at least the folks when I attended managed to do it. Between lectures, readings and other assignments you’re basically pulling a long day anyway and then there’s the writing assignments on top of it. So you’re essentially already doing a full-time + job with huge writing assignments piled on top.
Like I mentioned, I thought I did pretty good before but after I found it easier to get more words written than I would have thought before I went. So now I work full-time with long hours, especially adding commute time, have a family, everything else and still manage to get the work done.
It was interesting going to the short story workshop because Kris pushed people pretty hard, but even though I wrote over 30,000 words that week I felt like I was on vacation. For the most part the master class grads attending were less stressed over the workload than those that hadn’t gone through that experience.
You’ll get a taste of that at the character voice workshop. Expect to work hard!
Thanks for the info. I think I might have to challenge myself on week to see just how much I can write, finding 15 and 20 minutes here and there, as well as the bigger chunks, without disrupting family life.
I’m excited bou the character voice workshop, and thrilled to hear we’ll be pushed. The workshop I went to last summer felt like a vacation.
It won’t be the master class workload, but they’ll make you work. When Dean describes the workshop as “A very intense week of writing. “, he’s being factual.
Congratulations on meeting your challenge — and impressive that you plan to just keep meeting it every month. I only managed 17,500 words last month, so I am humbly eating your dust here
Unfortunately December is not looking much better, right now I’m in the middle of a stretch of 5 consecutive weekends where I will either be travelling with the family or for work, so time for words will be hard to come by. But I’ll keep chugging. I am investing the time wherever I can, I just need to flat-out write faster.
Wish I could join you guys at the character voice workshop. I can’t make that one work this year– and I may have to wait till the next year to do another Kris ‘n’ Dean workshop at all…
Too bad you can’t make it out, but I understand how hard that could be. If you look at the challenge page you can see the real reason I hit my goal – I wrote every day. A few of those weren’t very many words, but hitting day after day really makes it work. Give yourself fifteen minutes. Set a timer. Do a word sprint. Allow yourself at least that fifteen minutes each day. Chances are you’ll find spare fifteen minutes here and there. I’ll bet by the end of the month your count is higher if you hit each day. Make the challenge to keep your streak going. I’m 50 days into my current streak right now, with 83,965 words so I’m averaging 1,679 words (which is enough to hit 50,000 words per month). I rarely sit down and just write that much in one sitting. I try to write in the morning and then usually it’s little fifteen minute pockets when I take a break from everything else.
Thanks, Ryan. Wise words. You are officially my writing hero
Yeah, unfortunately the CV workshop overlaps with a scientific conference that I need to attend this year to present a paper. So I have to go to that instead.
BTW, I just noticed that you left a nice review for Trinity of the Sands on the B & N site. Much appreciated. That story has been my best seller to date (just a handful of shorts up so far, but I plan to publish some more and a collection or two this month).
If you have a piece you’d like a review on just let me know which one.
Alistair