One Week in for the Chapter Book Challenge #ChaBooCha

So one week has passed and I know that some of the Chapter Book Challenge members have posted some amazing word counts on the Facebook group. Their word counts are in the thousands! Others have posted more meager word counts, but that's the thing about this challenge - everyone might have different overall word count goals, so no one needs to be writing at the same pace. Middle grade books, chapter books, early readers and YA all have different word count requirements.

And even when two people are both writing for the same age group, each writer is different, each story is different and no one can say what pace works best for each person. We all have our own pace of doing things. ChaBooCha isn't all about the charge for the finish line; it's about putting more time than you normally would towards writing those books for kids, making it more of a priority in your day to day life and getting support from other writers who are doing the same thing.

When I was writing my novel for National Novel Writing Month last November, I had a huge word count. I wrote 100,165 pages in 30 days. I had made a personal goal with myself that I would write a complete first draft of my novel in those 30 days instead of just writing the 50,000 words required by the challenge. However, the middle grade novel I am working on for ChaBooCha will have a much lower word count and does not require me writing the same high daily word count that I managed during NaNoWriMo. I'm glad about this because I am off to a slow start. As it does for many, life has gotten in the way. Aside from arranging this challenge and coordinating the guest posts and prizes, I have been doing some major home-overhauling. I've also had dentist appointments, sick kids, school parent-teacher conferences and other events that have interfered with my writing time.

I have managed to write the first three chapters of my story, a story that will be about 16 chapters long. Despite this slow start, I am not worried. Most of the stuff that has been getting in the way of my writing time is over now and there are still over three weeks left of the challenge. In fact, there are three weeks and three days left to write my story.

Do you hear that? If you've been struggling to fit in the writing time, don't get too stressed about it just yet. You still have 24 days left to write!

If you want to join a critique group of five to six people, there is a place to sign up for it in the Facebook group. Also, stop back by the blog tomorrow as there will be a guest post by author Rebecca Talley (and a prize to try and win)!

Good luck in week two!