100 days of writing

A writer friend of mine shared a technique recently that she'd used to power through the first draft of a novel.

It's a chart, with a box for every day of the year. The idea is, whenever she wrote a bit more of the novel, she coloured in a box; it's a physical way of seeing just how much you've progressed. And it worked - she's finished the first draft.

*pop of champagne corks and general celebrations*

I thought I'd give it a go. Being me, I didn't commit to 365 days. I went for 100... I'm not too good at the discipline thing y'see. That being the case, I made my 100 box chart and added another set of boxes underneath; the 'I've not written anything today' boxes. (I was hoping that a visual reminder of the days I was too busy/lazy/not in the mood to write, I'd be so ashamed of myself NOT making the time or putting the effort into writing, I'd force myself to get more done.)

I didn't start off too well. In the first week, I only wrote on four days. Then I cheated, and added a square when I wrote a blog post, which made me feel better. Well - it's writing. Not on the WIP, sure, but I'm still producing words.

I'm happy to say that I've done better since. There are only two blog posts recorded so far - the rest are all WIP work. The WIP is a very, VERY rough draft - handwritten and notebooked, with lots of comments in the margins - but it's growing. Whether it's a hundred words on a day, or several A4 pages full, it's growing. And every time I block out another square, I'm one day closer to my target. The ratio currently stands at 4:1 writing to non-writing days, and it seems to be keeping me focused. (Plus there's the added advantage of not losing where I am in the story, because I'm doing a little bit pretty much every day.)

The WIP story - er, not going to tell you about it yet. It's not nearly ready enough to share. But I'll be adding a few more hundred words to it later this afternoon.

Then it'll be another block shaded, which leaves only 83 boxes after today to hit my 100 days target...