{"id":8066,"date":"2021-05-28T11:26:38","date_gmt":"2021-05-28T16:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=8066"},"modified":"2021-05-28T11:26:41","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T16:26:41","slug":"writing-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2021\/05\/28\/writing-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Silhouette<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I’ve never taken part in NaNoWriMo<\/a>, and I don’t see a day I ever do. It’s not that I’m against it, but…it always seems I have other writing projects moving along when November rolls around. (I’m not willing to set those things aside to take on a new challenge.) Still, I think it’s cool that every November, a bunch of people set out to write 50,000 words in 30 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Challenges don’t have to be big…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see people on Twitter who tweet that they plan to do an hour-long writing blast beginning at a certain time, and others jump in for that hour. It’s a comforting feeling, knowing people use that time to separate from the world and do something they love, knowing there are others doing the same at that exact moment in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1000 Words of Summer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Every summer, Jami Attenberg puts together a challenge called the 1000 Words of Summer Project<\/a>. The gist is simple: for two weeks each summer, people shoot for writing 1000 words a day. Some use the time to make progress on novels, while others write a small pile of blog entries. Others write short stories or essays. If you can write it, you can count it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s the only writing challenge I’ve ever done; in part, because it’s not too hard to plan out a handful of chapters in a novel and just write. It’s not so much that you end up writing for the sake of hitting numbers, leaving you with a bit of a mess to clean up. (I have never been one who puts down big daily word counts. I’d rather let things simmer a bit so the best way through becomes apparent. But that’s just me…others thrive on word counts.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some years I’ve written more than 14,000 words in the two weeks, and other times I’ve only knocked out half the count (but still made good progress on projects).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This Year<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I’ve not given this year’s 1000 Words of Summer challenge much thought, but with it starting on Monday, I’m considering it. I have plenty of stories lined up for Not About Lumberjacks<\/a>, and know roughing several out could be a great use of the challenge. (Not finishing them, because there comes a point in my process where it’s all down, and edits may mean removing words or just adding 25 – 100 of the right words the story needs. Sometimes, for days.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can knock out plenty of blog entries as well…or work on essays. Hell, I can even return to the latest in-progress novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good Timing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The 1000 Words of Summer challenge comes at a good time for me this year. I’ve been looking at what I do a bit differently these past few months<\/a>, and it’s time to get back to moving forward. It’s not that I’ve not <\/em>been writing, but this spring has seen me not writing as much as usual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, while writing this, I’ve decided that — come Monday — I’ll have some rough notes made over this weekend ready, and I will wake up in a little bubble…and write.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve never taken part in NaNoWriMo, and I don’t see a day I ever do. It’s not that I’m against it, but…it always seems I have other writing projects moving along when November rolls around. (I’m not willing to set those things aside to take on a new challenge.) Still, I think it’s cool that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8066"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8066"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8070,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8066\/revisions\/8070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}