My new challenge is tough. It is designed to get me writing made-up stuff instead of writing in my journal. I have discovered through January and February that having a target of three thousand words a day forces me to write quickly because I can find so many other things to do, and I often leave it until late in the day. The easiest way to knock off three thousand words quickly is in my journal. I can type three thousand words in seventy minutes if I need to. So most of the writing is about me and my problems. There are germinating blog posts, ideas for stories, but nothing that can be published without a lot more work.
Over the last few months I have been writing daily, but apart from building a habit it hasn’t been of much use in terms of ending up with anything to publish. When I try to write fiction I write for about forty minutes, get stuck, feel sick and hungry, and abandon it for the day, having to make up the deficit with hastily written journalling. There is some finished stuff, but it is not enough.
Hence the new challenge to write fifty thousand words of made up stuff in the month of March. There are twenty-nine days left. A minimum of 1750 words a day will get me there if I write every single day. Journal words will not count, so all the words I write will be fiction, blog posts, articles, poems, or non-fiction. None of it will be journalling. I will aim to do two thousand words a day so that I can have a couple of days off or finish early or take it a bit easier at weekends.
Quality of words is not important. However, knowing me as I do, I will be polishing the prose as I go. The main purpose is to write a lot of made up stuff and to learn to do that as a daily habit.
I have previously given myself ridiculous targets to aim for, like one hundred and fifty thousand words in February, over five thousand words a day, but that didn’t last even a day, and the chances of achieving the goal diminished every hour, as the daily required word count went higher and higher. After about a week I abandoned it entirely. I realised I needed a much more realistic challenge. After all, I don’t have to stop at two thousand words if I feel like doing more.
The family has been warned, and I have a plan of action.
Wish me luck.