EP12: September Writing Challenge - TRANSCRIPT

 Hi! You're listening to Hyba is Writing, and I am your host, Hyba. Recently, I started challenging myself to write 500 words per day. I reverse-engineered this number because I have a certain number of words I'd like to have completed by the end of the month, and so I counted back and tried to settle on a good number that seemed feasible, and I ended up landing on a nice, comfortable 500 words a day!

If you're listening out there and you're a writer, too, you probably aren't new to the concept of having word count goals. For those of you who aren't writers and have never heard of this, it's a very common way for writers to track their progress when writing their stories and make sure they're on schedule or on track for whatever goals they have. It's almost like how in school you have to write papers with a specific word count minimum, only we choose to do this to ourselves and the paper is actually a story that goes on for tens of thousands of words.

I personally never liked setting word count goals for myself, mostly because I'm a very irregular writer. I write in bursts, and these bursts don't really happen with any regularity, so it has always been difficult for me to follow a daily word count target challenge - or any kind of daily challenge, for that matter - because there will be days and weeks when I will go without writing a single word, and there will be days when I'll sit down and write like a woman possessed, getting a nice 2,000 or 3,000 words in one sitting.

Despite this, I've decided that I'm going to finish my fantasy novel, The Pirates of Sissa, in the next couple of months. With that decision came the realization that that means I have to up my writing frequency. So, I'm trying to push myself and see what happens. But you might be wondering why I'm working specifically on The Pirates of Sissa, since it's not the first book in the fantasy series. Well, the truth is that I realized a while back that if I wanted to make sure that the series had as few inconsistencies as possible, I needed to complete all the books before publishing any one of them. So, I figure it really doesn't matter what order I write them in, as long as I get the series done as soon as possible. At the same time, I've also been considering just completing the first two books, which are The Fall of the Black Masks and The Pirates of Sissa, getting those two published, and seeing how things go from there. And basically hoping that the consistency works out and that I don't have any big regrettable plot holes or anything of the sort. I've not decided yet, but if you have any advice or suggestions about this, please don't hesitate to let me know because I would love to get all the help I can get!

Also, it's important to note that I've been working on these books now for about 3-4 years, I think, and it's been a very long ride. It's about time I started finishing them. I'm starting to feel that I'll never complete any books if I continue with the usual routine, so I have decided to be more disciplined and committed to my craft. One way of doing that is making sure I write a certain amount every day.

500 words a day is a really good number for me. It's more than manageable. I think that's important as well. When you're picking a number of words to set as a daily target, you should definitely keep in mind how feasible it is for you as a writer personally. We know our individual limits and writing habits more than anyone else! For example, I know that 500 is a comfortable number because if I miss a day or two, I have no doubt that I'll be able to make them up later on, unless life gets in the way. In fact, I think I would have aimed for a higher number if I wasn't so busy with other things during the work week, including my side projects and other responsibilities and work. So, it's really important to me that I choose a number that is comfortable enough that I can get it done in a good one or two hours out of my day.

For example, when I first recorded this episode, it was a Tuesday, and I'd sat down for an hour or two and written about 2,200 words. Some days are just like that for me, and it's perfect, too, because I already skipped a couple of days that I needed to make up. Today, as I record this episode for the second time, I have written a little over 500 words and plan to go back to writing once I've uploaded this episode! In fact, in total, I've already completed over 40% of my total word count goal for September, which is great because we're just about halfway through the month.

I also decided that the weekends are going to be decidedly more demanding. I settled on a goal of 1,000 words for Saturdays and Sundays, which again I feel is a good number for me, although I will admit that I am slightly worried I might not be able to keep up this particular word count target. If that is the case, I have no trouble bringing it down to 750 words, or even 500 words like the rest of the week. I won't feel bad about it, because at the end of the day, you've got to find a rhythm that works for you, and different people will have different rhythms, and these rhythms will also change in response to what's going on in your life as well.

So, this is my challenge to myself for the month of September! I haven't been writing any of my daily word counts down, because the software that I use, called yWriter, lets me know how many words I write on a daily basis. But I will try to track them on a spreadsheet or something along those lines so I can take note of how well I was able to stick to the challenge at the end of the month!

I'm really excited to see The Pirates of Sissa get wrapped up so that I can move on to the other books and get them written, too! I hope this means that I'll be a few steps closer to getting my books out there in the near future.

That's all I have for this episode today! Thanks so much for tuning in, and if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or requests, please let me know via my Tumblr or my Twitter! Until next time!