Yep. I’m going for it.

I finished my original challenge last night–1,000 words per day, every day for a month. It sounds like a lot, and I suppose it is. Completing the challenge probably would have been more exciting if it had been the top of the mountain, not Base Camp #1. Even though I’ve never done anything like this before—an entire month of writing 1,000 words of my novel every day, not missing a single day—the fact is that I’m not quite a third of the way through the first draft.

No, I don’t mean I’m going to stop my 30-day challenge on Day 29.

I mean that I’m debating my next challenge.

Earlier today, I looked at the calendar. Seeing how close I am to the end of the month, I was thinking idly of what to do next. Keep going for another week? Another two weeks? Maybe even another month?

Then, I happened upon a post I wrote in September, 2017, entitled “One Hundred Days.” I had no memory of writing anything with this title, so I went back and read it.

It seems that in 2017, I apparently felt I needed a nudge to write more. I found an article where violinist Hilary Hahn posted that she had practiced the violin for 100 consecutive days. It turned out that there were all sorts of 100-day challenges on the internet. So, I decided to commit to writing for 100 days.

When I posted a few days ago, I mentioned the advice which is so controversial among writers and aspiring writers, namely, that a writer must write every day.

I hate to break it to everybody, but based on the past four weeks, I have to concur.

I have now written at least 1,000 words every day for the past 28 days. I can’t say whether I really thought I’d do it or not, because the truth is that I didn’t ask the question.

Instead, I just wrote. Every day since April 1, at some point I’ve opened up my Surface and written at least 1,000 words of my new book. Most times, I’ve done it in my recliner, with tea on one side and Charlotte on the other. I didn’t question whether I felt like writing, because if I had, there likely would have been at least a couple nights when I’d have said no, like the night when I was falling asleep as I typed.

But my draft is coming along. I have a much better sense of the story now than I did a month ago. Back then, I had no idea whether what I was thinking of writing about would hold together. So far, it’s holding. And I believe it’s working because I’m writing consistently, picking up the thread every day before I can lose momentum.

I did it.

(Cue fireworks.)

Photo credit: Michael Fousert on Unsplash

“You finished your challenge? Isn’t that nice?”

No, dear. Not just the challenge.

I finished Draft #3.

(Cue more fireworks.)

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Is the book done and ready for publication? No. As I edited, I identified three things I need to address involving minor characters. For the first, his story line needs resolution. The second needs to be included more (since she’s in the first book, I can’t just ignore her). The third (another recurring character from the first book) also needs to be woven in earlier, because he’s a big part of the climax and he can’t just appear for the first time forty pages from the end of the book.

I’m sure that when I sit down to read the manuscript, I’ll find a lot more to edit and clean up and flesh out. But for the first time, I feel as if I have a real draft of the story, something that really can turn into a book I’d be proud to show to people.

To be honest, I’m kind of dazed.

But I did it. I really, truly did it!

Photo credit: Keith Luke on Unsplash