This year I signed up for Get Your Words Out (GYWO), a writing challenge. I pledged to write 75,000 words, and today I hit 101,512 words.

I’ve been writing since I was tiny. I had a newspaper article published when I was seven. I started my first novel when I was in fifth grade, and wrote on and off in the same universe through eighth grade. I stopped writing as much fiction after that (though I’d occasionally put down a hundred words here and there), and took up drawing. I had a strong letter writing habit – I corresponded with my grandfather who lived in another city, from around 6th to 11th grade (until his health got the better of him) – and I started journalling extensively in tenth grade. I enjoy writing, but as you can see, my writing habit tapered off in the past few years.

Fast forward to November last year, when I was toying with the idea of picking up writing again after I started reading Uncanny Magazine. I saw some people talking about GYWO online, about how they’d pledged wordcounts like 350k.

I was stunned. “350k?! That’s three hundred and fifty THOUSAND,” was my reaction, in short. I sat down and took stock of how much fiction I’d written that year. It came to a measly three thousand. That’s around twelve pages, while 350k is 1,400 pages – a veritable tome.

So I went on their website, checked out the pledges, signed up for the lowest pledge – and the rest is history!

What I wrote

I wrote 101,512 words. I’d estimate that it’s a 55/45 split between fiction and non-fiction (blog posts, academic writing, etc.). I’m planning to track categories next year for my stats. :)

This year I wrote, on average, 292 words a day and 8,700 words a month; or more accurately 405 words a day if you consider that I wrote on 263 days out of 365. Much of that went into two stories – a speculative fiction coming-of-age heavily inspired by Ghibli, and a Grimm-inspired magical realism tale inspired by a picture of an albatross – and the rest into various ideas I began with and abandoned. For nonfiction, I wrote some READMEs and tutorials as well as a lot of blog posts (many of which won’t see the light of day). I also tried my hand at some haiku – poetry is difficult! It requires a different way of thinking from fiction, which in turn is a whole different ball game compared to my mostly expository non-fiction.

What I learned

  • Small increments accrue into something great, if you work at them consistently! My 75k goal necessitated about 205 words a day (75k/365) – but by writing a little bit extra, I got it up to 100k.
  • Set a bare minimum and try to meet it every day. When I aimed to write 205 a day, I almost always went over my wordcount.
  • Something’s better than nothing! It’s better to have something badly written on the page than a perfect version in your head. It’s easily said, but as a perfectionist, focusing on quantity helped me see that quality comes slowly, and that you have to be bad before you can get better.

It has been really inspiring, seeing 20 minutes’ effort a day snowball into 100k.

What next?

I’m going to attempt GYWO again in the new year. Rather than just rekindling my love of writing, it’s stoked it into a rollicking blaze.

I seriously contemplated pledging 150k – which works out to ~411 words a day – but decided not to. First, 2020 looks like it’ll be a busy year for me; and second, I wrote a lot of good stuff this year and I want to spend some time editing it. So I’ll be attempting the 240 day habit pledge.

I haven’t really thought about publishing yet – it’s a scary venture, and I’m not confident in my maturity as a writer. (Yet!) And if I do publish, I’m considering a pseudonym.

So! Here’s to a good 2020! 🎉 May we have a productive year and write lots.

P.S. If this post has inspired you to try GYWO yourself, pledging is open until January 15th!