{"id":1285,"date":"2015-12-01T15:37:32","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T23:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/?p=1285"},"modified":"2015-12-02T11:05:28","modified_gmt":"2015-12-02T19:05:28","slug":"writing-50000-words-in-only-twenty-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/creative-inspiration\/2015\/12\/writing-50000-words-in-only-twenty-days\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing 50,000 Words in Only Twenty Days"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"typing-on-keyboard-widescreen-\"<\/a>I\u2019ve been conducting a personal writing exercise project during the last few weeks. Partially inspired by NaNoWriMo, I decided I wanted to write 50,000 words over the course of approximately three weeks. That would equate to writing an approximate average of 2,500 words a day every day for twenty days, and possibly giving myself a day or two off if I needed.<\/p>\n

For those who aren\u2019t familiar with NaNoWriMo, it stands for National Novel Writing Month and it has taken place every November since 1999. (You can visit their website at nanowrimo.com<\/a> for more information.) For NaNoWriMo participants, the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel during the thirty days of November. You can write more than that if you like, of course, but apparently the magical minimum word requirement for a novel is 50,000 words. If you plan to participate in NaNoWriMo, you’re allowed to work on plot planning and character development before the month begins, but the novel-writing itself is only meant to take place during November. The challenge also only applies to the first draft of your novel, as you aren\u2019t expected to complete a fully polished novel within those thirty days.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve known about NaNoWriMo for number of years now and have long thought about the possibility of participating, but I had never fully committed to the idea. This year, before I knew it, November was already upon us and I still hadn\u2019t committed to partaking in NaNoWriMo (yet again). Part of me wanted to participate, but at the same time I didn\u2019t really have an idea for a novel in mind, let alone the fact that I hadn\u2019t done any planning or character development, etcetera, leading up to November. Aside from that, I haven’t even read a novel in forever… all my reading as of late has been works of non-fiction. But even though I wasn’t prepared to take on the challenge of writing a novel, the challenge of writing 50,000 words in a month was definitely something that called to me. I had been creatively stagnant and I really wanted to get off my lazy creative ass.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned, I didn\u2019t really feel inspired to write a novel just yet, but being inspired to write something<\/em>, I decided to take upon my own personal writing project\/experiment. Similar to NaNoWriMo, I wanted to commit to writing a minimum of 50,000 words by the end of November. But instead of writing a novel, I told myself I could write anything I wanted \u2014 anything at all. The main idea behind this project would be to amp up my creative discipline and focus, not to mention getting my creative juices flowing once again. The experiment part of this project comes into affect because I wasn\u2019t really sure what kind of an effect writing so much in a short period of time would do for me, let alone if I would even be able to keep up with the commitment. Since there were a lot of unknowns, I decided that this endeavor was both a project and an experiment. I seem to like that combo, since one of my previous blog posts \u2014 The Baby \/ Human Project: An Experimental Way To Look At Personal Development<\/a> \u2014 had implemented a similar splicing of concepts.<\/p>\n

Since yesterday was the last day of November\u00a0\u2014 and hence my self-imposed deadline for me to successfully complete my personal writing project \u2014 I\u2019m delighted to report that I have indeed met my goal of writing 50,000 words for the month. Jubilation!<\/p>\n

Truth be told, I didn\u2019t even start this experiment until Monday, November 9th. And plus, during the last stretch of my experiment\/project, I had taken two days off from writing \u2014 American Thanksgiving and Black Friday \u2014 not only because it was a holiday (as I was in the United States spending time with Steve in Las Vegas), but also because I happened to be lucky enough to have a horrendous headache bestowed upon me that day, which literally lasted the entire Thanksgiving Day, not to mention a good chunk of Black Friday as well! Ugh! (In the context of this season of giving thanks, you can probably imaging how tremendously thankful I am to have that headache over and done with now!)\u00a0 But because of the fact that I took two days off from writing, that means that I met my goal by only writing for twenty days; and, my daily average word count for those days was about 2,500 words a day. …Woot!<\/em> That\u2019s totally awesome! \u2026At least I<\/em> think it’s awesome, especially given my recent creative dry spell for the past couple years.<\/p>\n

So, what have I been writing about? Well, a mixture of things. I wrote a lot about memories from my past, especially my childhood. It seems that I have a lot of wounds from that time in my life. It\u2019s amazing how I was able to relive so many instances and elements of my childhood by merely recalling those memories and writing about them. During the days where I happened to be writing about that time period in my life, I tended to feel sad, moody, disconnected, alone, and depressed \u2014 which essentially sums up how I felt during most of my childhood and youth, actually. I also noticed that I started to relive a lot of anger and resentment from this time period in my life, too. I didn\u2019t like it. I realized I desperately needed to put my focus elsewhere if I wanted to stop feeling that way. I needed to forgive, but not necessarily forget \u2014 otherwise, what lessons would be learnt? I decided I should start writing about something else and leave the past in the past.<\/p>\n

I wrote some reflective musings about philosophy and the nature, purpose, and meaning of life, the universe, and everything. And, somewhat related along those themes, I also wrote down a lot of great ideas for a script I\u2019ve been wanting to write for a long time \u2014 character histories and traits, plot ideas, and various other possible details. I\u2019m really excited and pleased with the progress I made in that area, and plan to start writing the script really soon\u2026 I’ll probably make a commitment to start writing that script come January, but who knows, it’s possible I may start earlier. (It will probably become a screenplay, although I\u2019ve been wanting to turn this idea into a potential stage play as well\u2026 Ideally it can be adapted for both stage and screen.)<\/p>\n

Some days I wrote about my various dreams, goals, aspirations, and ideas of how to possibly accomplish said goals. And, on some other days still, I\u2019d simply write the equivalent of journal entries, wherein I wrote down my various ponderings and observations on a variety of thoughts, events, and emotions that were going on in my life during that given day or week. \u2026And the other day, for example, in addition to some other captured thoughts, I wrote this very blog post. (Although I saved the tweaking and editing for today.)<\/p>\n

The main idea behind my writing project was to simply write<\/em>. It didn\u2019t matter what about. In part, I wanted to give myself this freedom so as to get out of my head and just get in the practice and flow of writing. If I had worried too much about what I was writing, I could have easily let my often debilitating perfectionism set in and sabotaged this project. But without putting any restrictions whatsoever on what I could write about, I liberated myself from having to stick to any kind of rules (other than the rule of simply writing, that is). And without any rules or structure to potentially get in my way, I didn\u2019t have any excuses to latch on to as a potential form of procrastination, nor specific topics or formats to get my way of seeking that ever-elusive perfectionism.\u00a0 (For what it’s worth, I figure that I had learnt this habit of striving towards perfectionism when I was a fairly young child. Perfectionism is how I learned to gain approval from others, such as by becoming the so-called teacher\u2019s pet, and striving towards earning straight A\u2019s and perfect scores on tests all throughout grade school so that I’d gain approval from a parent whom might otherwise seem perpetually disapproving.)<\/p>\n

Going through this writing project \/ experiment reminded me of a time in my life from about ten years ago or more when I used to journal somewhat regularly. I was reminded of how I definitely felt a stronger creative flow in my life back then, but on the other hand, going through this writing exercise also made me recognize that feeling (or sense) of being in a creative flow once again. It was like reuniting with a dear and close friend from my past that I haven\u2019t seen in way too long. \u201cAh, yes. I recognize you. How I\u2019ve missed you! Welcome back!\u201d<\/p>\n

Another thing that I learned or realized by going through this personal writing project \/ exercise is the importance of just writing anything to get into a creative flow \u2014 or perhaps even to create that very sense of flow itself. Something that\u2019s been holding me back for so very long is this desire to be perfect from the very get go \u2014 this longing to simply write the perfect script or the perfect dialogue or the perfect scenes on the very first try. But writing is a process, it isn\u2019t magic. Writing is like life \u2014 you have lessons to learn from it, and very rarely are you going to get things 100% perfect and right on the first try. But with persistence comes clarity and forward motion, and from that forward motion, you suddenly find yourself in a space of creative flow, building momentum, and suddenly coming upon the realization that, \u201cHey! You know what? I really CAN do this! My creative goals and dreams really are attainable, after all!” And maybe even, “Holy shit!!! This is awesome!\u201d \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

In conclusion, to anyone else out there who feels like they too have been in a creative slump as of late, I\u2019d definitely recommend taking upon a similar personal writing exercise-project of your own. Simply give yourself a word count goal, and a limited number of days to reach that goal. That\u2019s it. You can decide to give yourself a lot of flexibility and freedom in terms of what you write about, or you can limit your writing to cover a specific range of subjects or topics. It\u2019s up to you. Limiting the range of your creative subjects can certainly help you get stronger in a particular area where you might desire to make gains or improvements. But as far as I\u2019m concerned, that would just be a side benefit. The main benefit and goal of this type of writing exercise is to just do exactly that\u2026 exercise your writing.<\/p>\n

Yep! \u2026Just write. That\u2019s it! Pretty simple, wouldn\u2019t\u00a0 you say?<\/p>\n

As the ol\u2019 Nike slogan goes\u2026 Just Do It. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been conducting a personal writing exercise project during the last few weeks. Partially inspired by NaNoWriMo, I decided I wanted to write 50,000 words over the course of approximately three weeks. That would equate to writing an approximate average of 2,500 words a day every day for twenty days, and possibly giving myself a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}