About The 36K Challenge

36,000 words in 3 months? 36,000 words sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? 144 manuscript pages? But when you break it down to 1,000 words, three times a week, isn’t that something you can do?

It sounded like a lot more than what I was doing while I was at home, thinking about this as an idea. I could always find time to clean the house and read my favorite blogs, but writing always fell to the bottom of my to-do box, and dropped away, no words or pages written.

So my challenge to myself:

3,000 words a week, in whatever way it takes to get them. Sunday morning is the start of my new writing week, so they have to be done by Saturday night. I invite you to write along with me, and tell us about your progress here.

You can also set up another challenge for yourself. Anything that gets you to write. If you need a timed goal, go for it. If you’re a poet and want three finished drafts a week, sounds great. Just write along with us.

Here’s where I am in all this: I can write a thousand, even two thousand words a day. But it’s regularity that I lack. Unless I’m doing Nanowrimo or something else that’s crazy and life-altering, it’s easy to push today’s writing to tomorrow. So three thousands words in a week, nah, that’s not that much. But it’s also so easy NOT to do, right? That’s the point.

So let’s write. So let’s write. I’m starting today, Sunday, March 11th. I am keeping track of my words planned and completed with a simple Google Calendar, and in 12 weeks, I’ll be 36,000 words richer. How ’bout you?

Join us here by leaving a comment )or by sending me an email at writeagogo@gmail.com) and I’ll send you an email telling you how to register as a user.

You’ll be able to blog here about what you’re doing, and HOW you’re doing it.

We’ll keep track of each other’s failures and successes (and just sitting down and getting ANY words on the page is a success, right?), and we’ll get more words down than we would have without this challenge, right?

Me, I’m writing 3000 words a week. You could write two poems a week. Or for four hours a week. I welcome you to go for the word-count with me, but it comes down to this:

Challenge yourself to do something you KNOW you can do reasonably, but aren’t doing right now. Then tell us your goal, and tell us the reward you plan to give yourself, and we’ll cheer you on.

Just a few rules:  

1. Be nice. When you visit the site, leave at least one comment, if not more. Positive strokes are good.

2. Leave us a link if you want us to read your work (hosted elsewhere on your personal site, if you please), and let us know what kind of feedback you want, if any.

3. Write!

Any questions, email me at writeagogo@gmail.com

And welcome!

Rachael.