Well, we made it! The year 2020 is over and now we are in to 2021. Granted, I know that things aren’t going to be a whole lot different, since the end of a calendar year doesn’t automatically change things. However, despite the arbitrary nature of time, I am going to be optimistic and talk about my plans for this next year.
Mostly, those plans include two things: editing work, and the Million Word Challenge. Today, I’m going to talk about the second thing.
I first learned about the Million Word Challenge from fellow indie author Joanna White (https://authorjoannawhite.com/author/jonaner1321/) when I did an author interview with her a while back. Essentially, the goal is to write one million words in one year.
Yeah.
It’s not a joke.
Joanna completed this challenge in about seven months, and wrote nearly 21 books this last year. Very impressive and, frankly, super inspiring.
I thought that I would give it a shot, and I’m already very excited about it. Essentially, I will be writing one million words by means of books (of which I have many planned), blog posts, book reviews, and anything else that I end up writing more than a few lines. For example, posts on social media don’t count. But short stories or newsletters, I am going to count those. Next year, I might go even crazier and try to write a million words by counting books only.
I figured I should start small.
Now, this all sounds a bit crazy, but math-wise, it comes out to about 2800 words per day. That’s it! I can definitely manage that. I don’t write on weekends, typically speaking, unless something really inspires me. I do, however, write every day of the work week, so my goal will be to try and get at least 3k words per day, preferably more, so that my weekends can be more free. If I need to write on the weekends, though, I will.
(Actually, I have plans to do writing on the weekends, just by hand. The stories I’ll be doing this way will move more slowly, but I’m keen to try the new medium. So this will count, too.)
I have about twenty story ideas floating around my head and semi-planned out on paper. I’ll be starting with some of the pieces already in progress, outlined in my newsletter, and then go from there. With so many ideas, if I ever come up against a block or lack of interest in one story, I can jump to another and go from there. I will try my best to update frequently on social media, so you can keep up with my progress and see what sort of shenanigans I’ve come up with.
So, let the word writing madness begin! Happy 2021, my dear friends. May it be better than 2020.
Leave a Reply