Today is the first day of the Chapter Book Challenge! It's time to start writing. Australian ChaBooCha members were the first ones posting their word counts for the day in the Facebook group due to the day starting earlier for them. So how have you all done on Day One of the challenge?
My birthday was two days ago, and I received some good books as presents. The timing wasn't very good though as, instead of doing my first day of writing, whenever I had a spare moment, I had my nose stuck in a book. Well, actually two books. I read two books despite them both being long ones. I should have been writing.
And tomorrow is the once-a-month Swindon Free Writer's meeting with my critique group. Not only have I not read anything that has been sent in for critique yet, but I haven't sent anything in yet either. I missed last month's meeting, so I don't intend to miss this month's. It looks like I'll be doing some reading tomorrow morning to get my critiques ready.
However, I will have time after the meeting to work on my writing, and I plan on getting a bit of writing done tonight before I go to bed. My word count won't be huge, but at least I'll have done some writing.
See how easy it is to let life get in the way of writing? That's why I started this challenge. With the extra incentive of the challenge, I push myself more to get that writing done. (Hopefully, it helps you in the same way.) Without the challenge, I would probably not do any writing until Sunday. I would just give up on getting any writing done today or tomorrow.
If you still haven't worked out what to write about, it's not too late. Try brainstorming ideas. Remember the thought bubble method you may have learned as a child in school? It works really great for brainstorming story ideas. Another way is asking for help brainstorming in the Facebook group.
Our first author guest post will be going up tomorrow by Angela Ackerman, co-author of "The Emotion Thesaurus." She'll be giving us some tips on using weather effectively in your story's setting. And tomorrow's post will have a chance to win the first prize of the challenge, so make sure you comment on tomorrow's post.
In the comments today, it would be great if you let me know if you already have a story idea and if you've managed to do any writing today.
I, too, have been reading. I do have an idea. Later today, I'll brainstorm the idea to see if I can kick start a story!
ReplyDeleteGood for you, Pat! Go, go, go!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to post on FB, but, so far, I've written about 1000 words on my WIP. I hope to write one more scene after dinner. Will post my total word count then.
I haven't written anything yet. I've had this story in my head for a while, and actually started writing it before, but everything was all wrong. I'm basically starting from the idea again, and hoping this challenge will help me to get where I want to go. Even if this means I don't finish by the end of the month.
ReplyDeleteI understand how hard it is to write when you have great books to read! I am trying to keep my reading to craft books on writing for the moment, and sneak in some fiction bedtime reading ;-) I have got a very rough outline and keep going back to character and setting development as well as drawing a map of the setting, but I did get a reasonable start on writing the first chapter.
ReplyDeleteI've had a slow start this month, but it's getting there :)
ReplyDeleteI'm anxious about a story I've had in my mind for a while. I've been a bit nervous about it. Hopefully this challenge will motivate me to put it donw on paper, or stone, something.
ReplyDeleteI'm still anxious that I won't make it through the whole month - not on the story. I uncovered a few books while unpacking that I will read over when I get stuck :)
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