Wednesday, August 5, 2015

A Rough Draft in 100 Days

I will write a rough draft of my next book in 100 days.

Well that's torn it, no backing out now. Anything less than an embryonic book by day 101 and my failure is public. To expose myself further I am committing myself to tweet an update every 24 hours. Motivation you see, that's the idea.

I've been plotting out a book, and am now ready to tell myself the story in the form of a rough draft. I could just start writing but I've tried that before. I get bored, discouraged or distracted. I find excuses, obsess over a new computer game, or just forget. Sometimes I do stick with it, Hiding is proof of that, but even then it takes too long. Time to try something different.

Very rarely I buy one of the writing magazines that huddle together in the darker corners of WH Smiths. A few months ago I picked up a copy of Writers' Forum. I found a few articles to be useful, but one in particular caught my interest.

In short, the article proposed setting a writing goal and challenging yourself to achieve it in 100 days. There's more to it than that, such as how to chose the right goal, why 100 days etc. The article was written by Paula Williams and is based on material from The Business Bakery. Credit where credit's due so if you want to learn more then have a read here. Fair warning it's a bit cutesy, but each to his own.

The best thing about the 100 day challenge is that it gives you an excuse to buy a notebook. Not just any notebook, but a beautiful journal, one that you will look forward to writing in. I have a borderline stationery fetish, so this might be what reeled me in.

The notebook is not for the actual draft. The idea is to write in the journal every day about what you are have done to reach your goal. I've added the extra motivation of announcing my target here, and tweeting about it from day 1 to 100. I may even photograph and share the pages of the journal.

It needs a hash tag doesn't it. How about #100daydraft

It's important to set an achievable target for obvious reasons. My book is planned to be 90,000 words in 20 chapters. An average of 1,000 words a day should be within my reach. Day 1 will be when I get to the shops and pick myself a journal. No that's not procrastination, it's a consequence of having a day job.

I may well regret doing this, but I'm hoping my ego will drive me on. It's easy to give up when no one is watching.

Later...

I've just announced my 100 day challenge to the twttersphere via #writingchat. This is a group of writers who get together on Twitter ever Wednesday at 8pm UK time for an hour. I now have a horde of writers promising to nag me for 100 days.

I don't dare fail.