30,000 Word Challenge Wrap-up

Posted on Posted in Goals, Writing Progress Tagged with , , ,

Ok, the challenge period is over.

Yesterday, I got back from work at about 5:30 and managed to write until 9:45, when the wife and kids got home from Maine.  It was not continuous writing: I did pause a few time to re-light my cigar, or refill my scotch, or do a little tweeting.  But by and large, I was focused on the task.  To make my final goal of 30,000, I needed to get down about 4,200 words.

Alas, I only got 3,280 words, bringing my final tally for these ten days to 29,088 words.  That, of course, is just a bit shy of my 30,000 word goal.

But I’m going to call this experiment a success anyway.  I missed the goal by just under 3%, which is not too shabby.  Heck, if I’d managed to stay awake better on Wednesday, I’d have made it easily.  And that was really the point: to see just how much I could do if I really hunkered down and focused.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with myself, and with the work I cranked out.  I got a short story written and submitted to an anthology, went from about 4,000 words written on the scifi thriller story to over 20,000, went from next to nothing in The Penitent to 8,600 words, and even made some progress on my cop story and 30 Hours, which is the new title of my heist story.  So I got a lot done, and had some good fun doing it.

Yeah, I’m calling that a win, even if I came in just under my arbitrary word count goal.

3 Comments on “30,000 Word Challenge Wrap-up”

  2. Found your blog by accident and am glad I did. I see a lot of similarities here with the writing I’m struggling to do as a first time novelist. I only managed about 10k words for a week of effort, but it was far above what I’d managed before, so called it a big win on part. Seeing your goals and how you’re achieving them makes me think I can do even more.

    Keep up the good work and best of luck.

    //frank

    • Frank,

      Thanks for coming by. Wow when I started this blog I never thought about doing anything other than recording my writing journey, and my thoughts about it. I sure didn’t think I’d inspire anyone, or anything like that. So thanks for the kind words. Just keeping working, brother. The only thing holding you back from accomplishing what you want to accomplish is you. Some jaded souls might contest that, but I firmly believe it. Keep on trucking, man.

      Again, thanks for coming by, and for commenting.