Write Every Day - April Day #1 and welcome
Apr. 1st, 2018 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
auroracloudWelcome to Write Every Day for April 2018! This month, I'm hosting the challenge for the first half of the month, and from April 16 until the end of the month it will be hosted by sylvanwitch. Normally we have one host per month, but April ended up not being very good for any one participant, so we decided that sharing the month was the most practical way to go about it. I welcome both old and new participants for this first half of April!
What is this?
It's just what it says on the tin (well, title). Participants aim to write something every day. One person hosts the challenge in their journal each month, and every day, they create a post where others can check in about whether they've written and anything else they may want to say (e.g. how much you wrote or what you were working on or whatever about your writing/life/something is causing you to tear your hair out or jump from you). You don't need to tell anything else than that you wrote, though. The host keeps a tally of who wrote, posting it as a part of the next day's entry, so people can see themselves on the list (or not) and hopefully feel motivated! The host also aims to provide comments, encouragement, cheerleading etc. to everyone checking in. You don't have to check in on the days when you didn't write, but you can feel free to comment anyway if you want.
The best part is, there is no minimum to how much you should write! Even just one sentence a day is writing. (When you write just a sentence, in order to have written that day, we call it an alibi sentence. See, it's common enough that it needs its own term!) There is no competition, no minimum word count, no pressure. no ranking, no "punishment" or shame for missing a day or a few or a week - just the challenge to try to write even a little bit every day, or on as many days as you can manage.
Why does this work? Many of us find that it helps us to keep a regular habit of writing, but without a pressure of how much you should write. Because life happens, and sometimes you're busy, sometimes you're exhausted, sometimes you're sick, sometimes words just won't come together. But if you write even a few words each day, you keep it active in your mind, and the threshold to writing becomes lower; and so it's gets easier to write and to have those days when your writing goes better.
I've participated in this since August 2016, and it's been wonderful for my writing. I've written so much more than I ever would have without it. There are so many days when I've set out to write even that one alibi sentence, and I've ended up writing several hundreds of words. Some days I only managed a sentence or two, but eventually those sentences added up, and eventually the writing started flowing again. Plus, you get to know new people and get a supportive little community of writers. I used to do this kind of thing on my own several years ago, but eventually I fell out of the habit and didn't get back into it before I joined Write Every Day. The community makes it easier to stick to it.
You can write anything - fan fiction, original fiction, non-fiction (say, journal entries, academic writing, articles), poetry, planning and notes for a future text... Editing absolutely counts, too, even if you end up removing more words than you write; and some participants count e.g. beta-reading and commenting. Frankly, it's up to you what you want to count.
If you want to see how it goes in practice,ysilme hosted it last month, and shopfront before her, so you can check out their journals.
Goals, discussion, etc.
Do you have any specific goals for this month, any particular projects you'll especially be working on? Anything else related to writing you feel like saying now? Feel free to tell in comments!
I've spent much of the early part of the year trying to get myself ready to write a new novel draft. I'm trying to figure out the right balance in not planning too much so that I never get around to actually writing, but planning enough that the story doesn't lose momentum after the first 7,000 words because I don't know what I'm doing after introducing the characters. I think that with one of my novels-in-planning, I'm getting close to the phase where I can start writing it: so my goal this month is to actually begin writing this novel. I've written a lot of notes about the story, the characters, the settings and other details, I've kept it in my head for a few months, which is usually enough brewing. I've even written a little text that might go into the first draft, but I want to begin a focused, daily effort of actually writing the draft, not just notes. I'm hoping I might get there during the next couple of weeks. Exciting times!
I'd love to write some fan fic and maybe finally finish something that isn't for an exchange, but I don't know if it's happening this month or not.
Today's writing
Today, I returned from spending the Easter at my mother's, and I was soooo tired. I guess it's partly because I went skiing on the two previous days, and because I'm still in a state where social interaction exhausts me easily. So frankly, I spent a lot of today just lying in bed and resting, or lazily browsing comics or poetry books. And in the evening, when I set down to write, I instead spent ages browsing the novels and novellas published by Tor.com on their website, considering buying something. Oops.
But I managed to do some notes for my novel-thing in the end. I'm working on fleshing out the settings and the supporting cast; when I'm done with that, I'll hopefully be ready to write. Though I'll probably have to tweak some plot notes after that.
How about you all? Let me know in the comments!
My entries are posted on both Dreamwidth and LiveJournal, and you can comment in either post. If you miss a check-in, feel free to comment later!
sylvanwitch. Normally we have one host per month, but April ended up not being very good for any one participant, so we decided that sharing the month was the most practical way to go about it. I welcome both old and new participants for this first half of April!What is this?
It's just what it says on the tin (well, title). Participants aim to write something every day. One person hosts the challenge in their journal each month, and every day, they create a post where others can check in about whether they've written and anything else they may want to say (e.g. how much you wrote or what you were working on or whatever about your writing/life/something is causing you to tear your hair out or jump from you). You don't need to tell anything else than that you wrote, though. The host keeps a tally of who wrote, posting it as a part of the next day's entry, so people can see themselves on the list (or not) and hopefully feel motivated! The host also aims to provide comments, encouragement, cheerleading etc. to everyone checking in. You don't have to check in on the days when you didn't write, but you can feel free to comment anyway if you want.
The best part is, there is no minimum to how much you should write! Even just one sentence a day is writing. (When you write just a sentence, in order to have written that day, we call it an alibi sentence. See, it's common enough that it needs its own term!) There is no competition, no minimum word count, no pressure. no ranking, no "punishment" or shame for missing a day or a few or a week - just the challenge to try to write even a little bit every day, or on as many days as you can manage.
Why does this work? Many of us find that it helps us to keep a regular habit of writing, but without a pressure of how much you should write. Because life happens, and sometimes you're busy, sometimes you're exhausted, sometimes you're sick, sometimes words just won't come together. But if you write even a few words each day, you keep it active in your mind, and the threshold to writing becomes lower; and so it's gets easier to write and to have those days when your writing goes better.
I've participated in this since August 2016, and it's been wonderful for my writing. I've written so much more than I ever would have without it. There are so many days when I've set out to write even that one alibi sentence, and I've ended up writing several hundreds of words. Some days I only managed a sentence or two, but eventually those sentences added up, and eventually the writing started flowing again. Plus, you get to know new people and get a supportive little community of writers. I used to do this kind of thing on my own several years ago, but eventually I fell out of the habit and didn't get back into it before I joined Write Every Day. The community makes it easier to stick to it.
You can write anything - fan fiction, original fiction, non-fiction (say, journal entries, academic writing, articles), poetry, planning and notes for a future text... Editing absolutely counts, too, even if you end up removing more words than you write; and some participants count e.g. beta-reading and commenting. Frankly, it's up to you what you want to count.
If you want to see how it goes in practice,
ysilme hosted it last month, and shopfront before her, so you can check out their journals.Goals, discussion, etc.
Do you have any specific goals for this month, any particular projects you'll especially be working on? Anything else related to writing you feel like saying now? Feel free to tell in comments!
I've spent much of the early part of the year trying to get myself ready to write a new novel draft. I'm trying to figure out the right balance in not planning too much so that I never get around to actually writing, but planning enough that the story doesn't lose momentum after the first 7,000 words because I don't know what I'm doing after introducing the characters. I think that with one of my novels-in-planning, I'm getting close to the phase where I can start writing it: so my goal this month is to actually begin writing this novel. I've written a lot of notes about the story, the characters, the settings and other details, I've kept it in my head for a few months, which is usually enough brewing. I've even written a little text that might go into the first draft, but I want to begin a focused, daily effort of actually writing the draft, not just notes. I'm hoping I might get there during the next couple of weeks. Exciting times!
I'd love to write some fan fic and maybe finally finish something that isn't for an exchange, but I don't know if it's happening this month or not.
Today's writing
Today, I returned from spending the Easter at my mother's, and I was soooo tired. I guess it's partly because I went skiing on the two previous days, and because I'm still in a state where social interaction exhausts me easily. So frankly, I spent a lot of today just lying in bed and resting, or lazily browsing comics or poetry books. And in the evening, when I set down to write, I instead spent ages browsing the novels and novellas published by Tor.com on their website, considering buying something. Oops.
But I managed to do some notes for my novel-thing in the end. I'm working on fleshing out the settings and the supporting cast; when I'm done with that, I'll hopefully be ready to write. Though I'll probably have to tweak some plot notes after that.
How about you all? Let me know in the comments!
My entries are posted on both Dreamwidth and LiveJournal, and you can comment in either post. If you miss a check-in, feel free to comment later!
no subject
Date: 2018-04-01 09:46 pm (UTC)My goal for the month: OMG, start writing something that's not drawerfic! And finish something! (Hopefully that should be achievable, since I do have a challenge deadline this month ...)
But seriously, my writing has been so bizarre last month, and it's not like I want to start writing less, but at the same time, I don't really want to continue like that, either. It's all very ... odd. *sighs*
no subject
Date: 2018-04-02 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-04-02 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-04-01 10:27 pm (UTC)The skiing sounds lovely - I'd much rather be exhausted from that than from the spring cleaning and baking I was exhausted from myself. *g* I hope the next month will be a much better one for you! *hugs*
Goal-wise, my goal for the year is finishing a lot of stuff. First, some short WIPs (where I rather failed at so far, but I find even if I didn't add a lot of words to each, they matured quite a bit in my head, so that's at least some achievement, I'd say), and then, getting my long fandom WIP of doom (Working title is The Valley) finally, finally, into publishing state, and start to post it. I don't want to start posting before I've at least a more or less final version of the whole story. I also want to work at an orignal NaNo novel with the aim of getting closer to publishing state, but we'll see how that goes. But fanfic-wise, I got three reviews today for two fics, by two different people, which is absolutely rare for me, and a most welcome motivation to work at the fanfic projects.
For my own tally, I can add only an alibi sentence today, as I've been away most of the time, and too tired when home. I probably won't add much more story words today, too, as I have to catch up with lots of journal entries and my own last tally post comments, and I'm going to shamelessly count that as well.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-02 06:45 pm (UTC)Skiing certainly is lovely, and I hadn't had a chance to do that properly for years. Impressively enough, my arms and shoulders still aren't aching! Maybe my work out regime is working!
My goal for the year is finishing stuff, too. Well, so far I've finished four fanfics for challenges, and as soon as I took a break from challenges, I'm not finishing any fics. But hopefully I will yet, and anyway, I plan to finish my novel draft, not just start it. :-)
Hope today has been a more energetic day for you!
no subject
Date: 2018-04-02 01:27 am (UTC)I'm so excited to hear about your novel and how it goes! I know what you mean about balancing the planning with the actual writing. It sounds like you've struck just the right balance this time, though, and that's so exciting! I LOVE the feeling of coming into a new project like this, and I hope you're enjoying the anticipation.
I'm planning to keep plugging along on "The Donner Party," which is currently at just under 60K. I'm also hoping to spend some of this week's break figuring out how all the parts fit together. I think I've mentioned that while I'm typically a super-organized writer, this project has been an exercise in letting go of that and just writing to write. The upside of this lack-of-process is that it's very freeing, and I've been enjoying it immensely. The downside is that I do have to organize it at some point, and the longer it goes without being organized, the more work there will be when I finally do. So...I think I'd better bite the bullet. So my plans for this month are to both keep writing and to also get some handle on what the ending is going to be so that I can start putting the parts in some kind of readable order.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-02 06:54 pm (UTC)I hope I'm indeed striking the right balance now - we'll only see when I'm writing, really. But I have a good feeling at the moment, and I feel like it's time to start the writing soon. I need to have a rough idea of where I'm going and what will happen on the way, but I need to figure out a lot of the details while writing, that works out the best.
Wow, your project is getting into an impressive length! And sometimes it's good to accept a challenge to your usual ways of writing and try something different, so enjoy freeing your muse and going along for the ride! Do you use any particular writing software to help you organize, or some other tools? I'm finding Scrivener very handy for my story organization, and sometimes I work with index cards.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-04 12:31 am (UTC)I do not use any sort of organizational software, and for now, I'm going old school. For example, today I sat down with a legal pad and lined it horizontally to make a handwritten timeline chart. Then I color-coded the sections of a printed copy of the story so far (thanks for the tip on that, btw--I think you mentioned color-coding). I also kept notes on a separate pad. That said, I am definitely going to check out Scrivener. I've heard good things about it, and I think it's just my general wariness about new technology that has kept me from it this long. I appreciate the advice! :-)
no subject
Date: 2018-04-02 04:21 am (UTC)Is anyone doing Camp NaNo? Does anyone have any room in a cabin?
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Date: 2018-04-02 06:55 pm (UTC)Did you write on the first?Never mind, just noticed your other comment!I was thinking of doing Camp NaNo, but since my novel isn't yet quite in the shape to write it, I've decided against it. I'll just camp on my own when the time is right. :-) I've never done it, actually, so it feels a bit odd that you need to have a cabin, but I guess it's cozy once you have one, too. :-)
no subject
Date: 2018-04-03 09:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-04-03 10:55 am (UTC)Do you need, like, POI cheerleading for yours? Or someone to bounce ideas off?
no subject
Date: 2018-04-04 08:19 am (UTC)Oh, sure, chat to me whenever! I'm trying to brainstorm an mpreg piece, finish the next chapter of Come Away With Me and write my letter for the upcoming gift exchange.
Remind me what your PoI WIPs are? :D
no subject
Date: 2018-04-02 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-04-02 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-04-03 04:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-04-02 08:01 am (UTC)My goals for the month are pretty much the same ones as last month: to finish a few WIPs, to revise/write on my Nanowrimo novel from last November, and to work steadily on a nonfiction project (or projects, as the thing is growing...).
Today I worked on the nonfiction project. But I also opened the novel file and wrote an alibi sentence, just to make myself get in the habit of at least looking at it every day.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-02 06:59 pm (UTC)Yay for progress on the nonfiction project! And that's good for getting yourself into the habit of working with the novel, at least. :-)
ETA: Oh, and welcome, since we haven't "met"/talked before!
no subject
Date: 2018-04-02 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-04-02 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-04-03 09:42 am (UTC)I have 5 main projects I'm working on this month. 1 original novel and 4 fanfics. In practice what I'll probably do is anything except work on those, like last month, but we'll see whether Camp NaNo helps me to focus better. It might.
Good luck starting your novel, and thanks for hosting these first two weeks <3
no subject
Date: 2018-04-03 07:29 pm (UTC)Hee, I can totally relate to having an X number of projects and then working on something else all month anyway. Good luck at focusing and getting at least some of your planned writing done! Challenges like Camp NaNo are good for helping to focus, even if I've never done the Camp NaNo myself - just the NaNo proper a few times. :-)