1,000 word challenge

When I was in college, I started reading the book “The Artist’s Way”. A big recommendation in that book was to write what the author called “morning pages”. 3 pages of brain drain, or creativity, or whatever, as long as it was 3 whole pages.

I did it for quite a while and found it very useful for creativity, release, etc. it became a love/hate kind of habit. When I met my husband, and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and moved, etc. that habit stopped although I have thought about it through the years.

Now I want to become a writer. I have some really good concepts, but it is difficult for me to stick with it for too long. So, I was thinking…maybe if I challenged myself to write 1000 words every day, I could get some real writing done. It could be the books, or a blog post, a children’s story, a letter to a loved one, etc. just 1000 words…well, maybe I’d get back in a writing habit, and by the end of the year I should have finished at least one of my novels.

I estimate the breakdown to be approximately:

350 words per page
600 pages
210,000 words in the novel

1000 words per day
210 days
30 weeks
Approximately 7 1/2 months to finish it.

Challenge: write at least 1000 words every day for a year. They can be anything, but 1000 a day. I’m not sure how easy or difficult this is going to be, but when I was doing the morning pages (which was about the same 3 or 4 pages that 1000 words would fill), I ultimately enjoyed it, although some days I literally wrote “I don’t know what to write” until it filled the pages.

If anyone would like to do this with me, I would love the support. I’m tired of being nothing. Not nothing, but you know… I want to write. I need to write. I have good ideas, but the commitment of writing a novel worries me. I feel like if I can just think of it as words, hopefully some will fit into a story, but no pressure, maybe things will start coming together.

So, what do you think? Anyone with me? Lets give it a week. The challenge would start for me on the tenth, but that way I could practice and gracefully back out if needed. 😉

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