Comments on: Reset! The Ups and Downs of Writing Challenges

By: dwsmith

dwsmith — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 03:51:16 +0000

Fantastic, Dale!! Way to go and keep having fun.

You make this work and we’ll be trying to borrow money from you in a few years. (grin)

Have fun!!

By: Dale Phillips

Dale Phillips — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 01:51:02 +0000

Dean, hope all gets better, and best of luck finishing the story challenge.
I blame you (among others) for making me crazy, as I’ve taken up the challenge, and will put up a story for every week of next year.
I put my first one up today, and am now hooked!

Oh, yeah, and I’ll have a book a month as well.
http://daletphillips.blogspot.com/2011/12/joining-revolution-going-nuts-with.html

Well, you DID say we should be writing a lot of good stuff and putting it up…

By: Faysie

Faysie — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 05:47:54 +0000

Thomas, thank you for the excellent links! It’s so great to see so many different places where writers are sticking together and challenging themselves to produce great work and take advantage of this new world of publishing

And Silver, WOW, congratulations on your accomplishments and thank you for sharing your journey, that is quite inspiring indeed!

I definitely don’t want to wait until 2012 to start on this fun journey, now seems like a good time Dean, thank you as always for providing this space for writers to take care of each other, it is deeply appreciated.

By: Silver Bowen

Silver Bowen — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 01:00:12 +0000

Faysie – I am a new writer as well. I have written a ton of poetry (speculative/transhumanist) but spent years wanting to write fiction. I was worse off than you, I think, because I had trouble with basic ideas, much less characters, plot, and so on. I started writing in April; this year I completed 26 short stories and am a few chapters away from a a finished novel length MS. I have pt a fairly regular blog called Welcome to the Journey at http://silverbowen.blogspot.com that you might find helpful, detailing the things I have learned that have helped me (as a raw newbie.) I especially concentrate on helpful process-related concepts and habits. I am far from a heavy-hitter and have much left to learn, but reading some of what helped me get over the hump from no-ideas to regular story finisher might be worth your while.

And thanks for everything Dean, your blog has done more to help me get going than anything else.

By: Melissa Yuan-Innes

Melissa Yuan-Innes — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:57:00 +0000

Hey Dean,

Sorry to hear about (what I think is) your optic neuritis. Thanks for taking care of yourself and talking to us while you recuperate. Thanks, as always, for explaining your goals and what to do when you don’t reach them, but it’s still a success.

I have some unofficial goals: 30 items under my name on Amazon by the end of 2011. I’m at 29 now. Four of these are collections/anthologies, but I’ll probably count them, since I don’t want to burn myself out and get optic neuritis. But I may exceed this. We’ll see how it goes.

I also wanted my main novels indie published before I completed my maternity leave. Done. I have other novels to tweak, but I’m not going to worry about them. Just work slowly but surely.

Finally, I hoped to consistently earn four figures from my writing in a year. Done for the past two years. So I upped it to $5000 for this year. Done. Then I was looking ahead to possible five figures in 2011–probably not doable. Also depends if you count earned vs. actual cheques received (aka Amazon Kindle’s 60 day payout) and gross vs. net. But still a cool position to be in, considering New York regularly ignored me/took years to respond.

Thanks again. Speedy healing.
Melissa

By: Faysie

Faysie — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:43:10 +0000

Thanks so much for the advice, Camille, that sounds like exactly the thing to get me back on my feet. I especially appreciate the “flash fiction and poetry and anything small.” It’s tough to accept that even the small things are victories when my long-term goal is to be a multiple-novels-a-year writer like many of the readers on this blog. I guess I need to start somewhere. Thanks again

By: Thomas E

Thomas E — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 13:08:14 +0000

“.But, dang it, I want to start writing again! So, do you or any other readers have any good 2012 goals for someone who is really out of practice? ”

By far the goal I’ve set that has helped my writing the most this year is write 1 sub 1 ( http://absolutewrite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=221 and a blog at http://absolutewrite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=221 ) where you write 1 short story a week, and submit it.

It is an ambitious goal, and there are others for people who want to submit a story every month, or every two weeks, but write 1 sub 1 is an experience I’d recommend to anyone. And it has a small community of people dedicated to the same goal, which helps enormously.

By: Sam B.

Sam B. — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 02:41:03 +0000

Hi, Dean.

First time commenting on the blog, even though we’ve spoken briefly in emails. Sorry to hear about some of the lumps you’ve taken in the past months.

You’re right about how to view the writing challenge, and other challenges in general – writing 30-odd stories may not fulfill the original goal of 100, but that’s still probably more stories than you would’ve written in the same time period if you -weren’t- setting out to challenge yourself. No real ‘failure’ there, like you said.

With my own “52 Story” challenge coming up, it’s timely that you’ll be covering goal setting and such. I’m getting antsy waiting for New Year’s, though. May have to start a week or two early, cause I’ve got more ideas than I know what to do with.

By: Camille

Camille — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 02:19:06 +0000

Faysie: I had some stuff that put me down and out for a LONG time. Actually it was a series of unfortunate events, you might say. As soon as I got up from one, boom, I’d be knocked down by another. This happened more than once in my life, actually.

So here’s my advice: first don’t expect to get back up to speed quickly.

Second — definitely get in on a writing challenge or dare. I like ROW80 because it lets you set your own goals, and it’s long term (80 days at a go). Or do it on your own. In both cases, it can be useful to start a blog or livejournal so you can report your progress. Or lack there of.

Third — set goals you can control. While you have some control of how many words you write, that varies. The thing that is steady is time. So count minutes rather than words for a while.

What do you do with those minutes? That depends on you. What works for me, coming off a difficult break, is to spend a week or so focusing on ideas and brainstorming. Then, unless I have a bigger project I want to work on, I’ll dive in to writing flash fiction and poetry and anything small. Getting some finished work under your belt is critical to your confidence.

By: Rob Cornell

Rob Cornell — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:16:30 +0000

I’m coming dangerously close to missing my goal of four completed novels in 2011, but I haven’t given up yet. If I can finish the one I just started before year’s end, I’m golden. But you make a good point. My goal is four, but even if I don’t finish this one in time, I wrote THREE novels this year. I have never written three novels in a single year. I’ve never even written two novels in a year. So that’s pretty huge for me.

Rest easy, Dean. Get well soon.