Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I challenge you to set a writing goal for September and work hard to reach it. The general word count goal is always 30K, but if you've met that in previous months, try 35K.

Standard format: One post per person, updated with new word counts/goal info daily, weekly, whenever. Please consider posting for the first time when you're ready to keep track.

Bonus Format: We can try to manage chat and encouragement in this thread as well, but you should only update word count/writing challenge progress on ONE post.

Want to chat, offer words of encouragement, or get your frustrations off your chest? Join us over at The Coffee Shop - September thread!

Who's with me?
May the word counts be ever in your favor.
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For September, my wordcount goal is 6000 words.

I only set it so low so that 1) I will feel great for doing way better and
2) I am presently working on preparing a math conjecture (possibly proof of a theorem) for submission

So, let's see what it brings.

I'll stop in to update, but I have a blog where I hold myself accountable to my daily writing: Fantasy Writing Journey with Graeme Brown Winnipeg Writer

I have a problem with sticking to one thing. I tend to write a ton of different stories all at once, which causes me to never actually finish anything. My word count may skyrocket, but it's all on different projects, never the total into one manuscript. This month I've decided to stick to the manuscript I'm most passionate about, recording the word count of only that manuscript here. My word count may be quite low, incidentally, but my goal for this year was to finish an actual novel-length manuscript, and that's never going to happen unless I hold myself accountable! So I don't have a particular word count goal for September, per say, but I hope to write at least 1000 words each week on this one story. It'll be really hard, but that's what this forum is for, right? Keeping yourself on track for your writing goals.

9/1: 325
9/2: 621
9/3: 0
9/4: 0
9/5: 0
9/6: 515
9/7: 193 (Not too shabby for the first week!)
9/8-9/14: 0 ...work and school and blog, etc. Ugh, I can't even look at that stupid zero. I think this is the first 7 days in a row of zero words written I've had all year..

Total: 1654

I really pushed myself in July to meet the 30K and I did! I was super excited, so I challenged myself to do it again in August and I wrote another 50K, finishing the novel. Oh my goodness, I can't imagine doing that again. But I guess you never know.

This month, I have two goals, the first is to write 30K on my new novel and also to work on edits and revisions of my completed MS.

So, here goes nothing

Current WIP:
9/1 - 1128
9/2 - 1813
9/3 - 1187
9/4 - 1902
9/5 - 2561
9/6 - 552
9/7 - 1103
9/8 - 116
9/11 - 824
9/13 - 718
9/14 - 1389
9/18 - 2737
9/19 - 2400
9/20 - 1329
9/25 - 1310
9/26-9/30 - 2429

Total word count for September: 22,098 (drats, didn't make 30K, but at least I did my first round of edits...)

Edits on The Phoenix: A Gathering
9/2 - procrastination takes on the form of blogging/forums and writing other novel
9/6 - first 9k edited!!
9/7 - 7k edited
9/11 - another 3k edited
9/12 - 6k edited
9/14 - 9k edited
9/16 - 7k edited
9/19 - 6k edited
9/21 - FINISHED EDITING - onto revisions round 2!

Total word counts edits for September: 82k

I'm in for 20K. The most I've ever written in a month is 15, so here goes nothing!

9/1-9/4: 2876
9/5: 1488
9/10: 831
9/11: 1375
9/12: 314
9/13: 927
9/14: 299
9/17: 1753
9/18: 1465
9/19: 253 (yeah...kinda reached the end of my outline so now I have to figure out what happens next!)

September Total: 11,581

I'm shooting for ~8000 a week, so that brings me to 32K more for September. I've already hit 3500 so far this week, going from Sunday to Saturday for the week totals.

9/4 - 3544 as of today.
9/5 - 5580 as of 1:00 AM
9/5 - 7221 as of 10:22 PM
9/6 - 7545 as of 1:22 AM
9/6 - 9194 as of 11:12 PM
9/7 - 10182 as of 12:18 AM
9/7 - 10567 as of 1:00 AM
9/8 - 11767 as of 11:21 PM
END OF WEEK
9/10 - 2362 as of 12:39 AM
9/10 - 3153 as of 1:25 AM
9/10 - 4364 as of 3:31 PM
9/10 - 4521 as of 11:31 PM
9/13 - 7150 as of 12:12 AM

September goal:

1. Finish outline for 2012 NaNo story. It might not be perfect, but it needs to be a complete outline.
2. Put an ending on 2011 NaNo story. Current status: approx at the half way mark
3. (Time permitting) Start over w/2011 NaNo outline. So many things changed in those 30 days that when I re-read it, I wasn't sure what was actually happening. Time to pull some dead story lines out, ax characters, and trim it up. By a lot.

Unfortunately, these are all rather intangible, but I will come in and give weekly updates.

Tossing my hat in! Goals for September:

1) Finish revising/polishing my current WIP. It will need at least one more pass.
2) Start querying said WIP.
3) Start drafting SNI. Not sure what to set as a word count goal for the month. 15k, maybe? Partly depends on #1.

9/1 - 9/4: ...tweaked my beginning a bit. I'll use the excuse that I was away for part of Labour Day weekend, but... must get my butt in gear. This post shall be my motivation.

I did great this month - got to 24,000 words of the first chunk of my novel. Now I've put it away while I write the sequel to a novella. Next goal: to have the novella (~30,000 words) done by January, then return to the novel chunk and submit it to my publisher for as a serial.

I never officially joined the challenge, but my work count so far is 36,700. I might hit 40k with the one day left.

Well, I didn't join the challenge because I had a weird double-semester and thought I wouldn't be writing much (outside of classes anyway), but it turns out I wrote some 18 (handwritten) pages throughout the month, and I'm very happy about them. Progress I never thought I'd have!

Claudie wrote:Well, I didn't join the challenge because I had a weird double-semester and thought I wouldn't be writing much (outside of classes anyway), but it turns out I wrote some 18 (handwritten) pages throughout the month, and I'm very happy about them. Progress I never thought I'd have!

Congratulations! That's awesome. Sorta like finding a $20 bill in your winter jacket that you had forgotten about. It just makes you feel good!