Writing Update

[meridian_rose]

So it's been another bumpy year with some high wordcounts and some appallingly low ones (November!).

I must not always have had November issues because the first year I did Yuletide I not only completed my gift fic but wrote treats before the deadline rather than as Yuletide Madness. However each year since I've found it harder to do anything much in November. This year I had an epic Yuletide fic planned and it just didn't happen – I did write a cut down version that touched on most of the things my giftee wanted and it was just over the wordcount, so that's okay, but still.

Anyway, there's a comm/website/challenge called Get Your Words Out which runs Jan-Dec each year. I know some f-listers have participated in. I've never done it, not least because of the wordcounts. The minimum pledge is 150K words. That's three NaNo's!
However I've looked into it a bit and you don’t have to complete the wordcount if RL gets in the way – you just have to complete at least ten of the twelve monthly checkins and write at least something before March. It's about stretching yourself, not punishing yourself!


GetYourWordsOut: Year Six!
Pledges & Requirements | GYWO.net

Out of interest I added up all my monthly totals from my round up posts:58,731words.
Then I looked at the novella (more on this in a moment); the initial AU fanfic half-done piece was 19601 and during the complete rewrite and expansion I've added 31000 words.

This gives me a year's total of 89731 words. It doesn't include meta (which I think does count for GYWO), my Yuletide fic, or my December posts. So I've got at least 90k written this year.

That makes it seem more manageable so I've decided to sign up at the lowest level (at the Dreamwidth comm). I still haven't decided how to track my wordcount – the post roundup is something I do anyway, but that's always "posted" fic which might be fic I've written a month ago for a voting challenge – which is okay so long as I don't count it twice! Because I also need to keep a note of unposted fic, like the novel – unless I count it once I've finished it and/or posted or published it. I'll figure something out.

As for the novel – well I can finally call it a novel and not a novella as I've just surpassed 50k! I've got one last bridging scene to write to join the previous sections to the finale, and then my rough draft is done :D

Comments

[theemdash]

Hi! I was vetting new members and saw your post about GYWO and just wanted to let you know a couple things:

When the year starts we offer a pledge tracker (Excel/GDrive spreadsheet) to our members for keeping track of word counts. You don't have to use it, but it's an option!

Also, the front-page description might not be entirely clear—you can miss more than 2 check-ins, just not 3 consecutive check-ins. (Though we'd appreciate folks not missing more than 2 for the year!)

Good luck with GYWO and thanks for letting your flist know about us!

[meridian_rose]

Ooh, shiny pledge tracker :) I'll definitely check it out once I'm accepted!
Yes, thanks for clarifying - I admit I was misconstruing the rules for the sake of simplicity here! I really do hope not to miss any, or as few as humanly possible :)
I'm looking forward to GYWO!