My Ten Day Challenge

So, here’s the deal. Mrs Bliss (aka the wife) is abroad for the next ten days. “Fine,” I said. “Finally some peace and quiet around here. I’ll take the opportunity to write a hefty novella!”

Practically, this translates into 30.000 words in ten days, which, in turn, makes a neat 3000 words per day. Without spousal distraction (aka watching Downton Abbey together) it should work. 3000 words per day is nothing too heroic and once I know where I’m going with the story, it sounds rather doable.

For motivational purposes (aka procrastination) I’m going to keep a public record of my progress on my blog. (Yes, I’m very much inspired to do this because of Dean Wesley Smith’s Writing in Public blog posts!) Don’t worry though, I won’t bore you with the details of my life on days that I haven’t managed to write any words (which may actually be more interesting days since I won’t spend them behind the computer, but alas…)

Today was day one and here’s what happened.

I woke up at 6 a.m. because I’m a morning person the bed was too empty. I do tend to work better in the morning though, as my brain seems to fry after dark (which is very early in Hong Kong.) I sent some e-mails and caught up on all the celebrity gossip. (Yes, I think Jamie Dornan is an excellent choice. No, I didn’t finish the book(s), but I do want to watch the movie.) I wrote a guest blog I had forgotten about and drank this.

Writer essentials #1

Then, I faced this.

The blank page… oh, horror.

As you can see, the working title for this novella is Summer’s End. The page didn’t stay blank for long, but it didn’t exactly fill up very quickly either. I had a vague idea for this story, but no character names or background yet so I spent some time figuring that out. By lunch time I had amassed a staggering amount of 500 words. No worries, I thought. I’ll catch up after lunch (aka watching the finale of The Great British Bake Off.)

But, because I’d woken up so early, I felt as though I had deserved a nap. After my nap I once again excelled in my domain of expertise: procrastination. (Oh, how doing laundry can seem so appealing at times.) I finally sat back down to write around 3.30 p.m. and managed another 500 words. Then the internet was there and I felt I had missed out on everything again and I went on a click frenzy and landed in the time warp… and then my brain started to fry, so I decided to write this blog post instead.

The final total for today is 1000 words. Not a disaster because the beginning of every new story is always a bit hesitant. I know I’m a slow starter and today was more about sitting down and figuring out the story, which, in between procrastination, I did manage to do. But I do hope tomorrow will be better in terms of word count, if not, I fear the worst…

I’ll keep you posted! 😉