We have talked about participating in the 3 Day Novel Writing Contest before, but always found that the labour day long weekend was not a good time to carve out 3 days for solid writing and hibernation.
We both struggle with carving out enough time in a regular work week to make any significant headway on our fiction writing, so this year we decided that even though we couldn’t participate in the official event, we would schedule our own 3 days and just have a contest between ourselves.
Although challenging, it certainly did work. Some keys to success that we discovered over the course of the 3 days:
-block off everything else from your calendar
-make some great reheatable meals ahead of time (soup, stew, chili etc.)
-make sure that your story is well outlined in advance to keep the instances of writing yourself into a frustrating corner to a minimum
-disconnect the internet
-turning off your phone
-if you get stir crazy, don’t switch activities – just switch locations. Library, coffee shop, apartment, coffee shop, library…
In fact, the 3 day push worked so well that we’re planning to do it again in October. If you’d like to join us, we’re doing a mid-week one on October 5, 6, 7. Can’t commit to the whole day? What about 4 hours each day? What about 2 hours each day? Decide on something realistic and achievable for yourself, and then check in with us and let us know what your goals are. We’ll keep you posted on how we’re doing too…
Anybody else in?
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Hello to you both. Hope all is well at your end.
Just been re-reading your books on self-publishing. I now have a website under construction through Host Bee. It’s pretty ambitious on my part, so it’s taking a bit of time. I have 2 books out on Amazon under my own imprint, ‘Toy Soldier Press’ and have 3 more getting readied to go live. Also working with Clive from our group to go to print through Createspace.
I did the the 3 Day, my fifth one in a row and got a pretty good start on a novel. Finished this story at about 27,000 words, so it wasn’t my longest, but it seemed to be one of the easier ones to write. And I really agree with your comment on having a solid outline. I found that the one year I went with a rough outline that I ran out of ideas/plot line before I got the story done. I had to quit writing to rough out my last dozen chapters – this on Monday evening around 6 o’clock. But it’s a fun project. A number of us will going in on the NANOWRIMO in November. Take care,
JIm