For those of you whose holiday writing schedule couldn’t even produce 150 words to tell me how you’d keep writing over the holiday–you have a few more hours to enter. The Great Holiday Word Count Challenge runs until midnight 12AM on Jan. 4, 2010– more accurate than saying it ends Jan. 3rd. Send your 150 word entry to the comments here on the blog or contact me via Facebook or via email. If you win, I’ll need your snail address eventually so I can deliver on that chocolate promise. These are donated by Euphoria Chocolates in Eugene, Oregon and boy are they to die for. Or I should say, to write for. PLUS, you’ll receive (either in person or by snail or email) a one-hour consultation with yours truly. For the consultation you can submit up to 10 double-spaced typed pages for review or we can talk about long range goals or anything else writing-related that you want. C’mon–you have to enter in order to win.
Writing Tip for today: For the contest, the objective third-party anonymous judge will not be deducting for spelling or grammar or even adverbs. I’m looking for creative ideas that sound doable. So don’t worry about your entry being the most literary. Just sell me on fresh ideas for writing more at the time of year when many writers (especially ones without deadlines) struggle for word count.
The Great Holiday Word Count Challenge is open to Linda’s present and former students, mentoring clients and writers who have not published a book length work. No purchase necessary.
Linda,
Obviously I’m not eligible for the prize, but I’d like to offer a guess that entries might be sparse because none of us–including me–have any really good ideas that allow us to write during the holidays. I limited my work to editing, which I consider to be a lot easier than picking new ideas out of the air. Only after the company left the house was I able to get back into harness.
Happy New Year.
First off, I had to change my writing space. Previously, I did all my writing on my laptop while sitting in a recliner in my writing/music room. That was way too comfortable; I’d nod off in record time. So, just before Thanksgiving, I bought a simple little corner desk and connected a monitor, keyboard, and speakers to my laptop, transforming it into a genuine workstation!
I situated the desk so my back is to the door. There are no clocks in the room, even the computer taskbar is set to auto-hide. Things that stimulate my right hemisphere surround me: a drum set; loads of music; some of my favorite artwork; and my dog at my feet. All this has made me more productive. I make it a point to write a page (250 words) a day. I keep the work varied; blog entries, short stories, or novel scenes.