Celebrate the Small Things on Friday!

It's Friday, which means only one thing: it's time to celebrate the small things with VikLit! This is a great opportunity to celebrate even the smallest of victories you may have achieved in the last week.

 

This week I'm celebrating my progress with the My 500 Words challenge, organised by Jeff Goins.

I began on 1st January, and the aim is to write at least 500 words every day for the whole of the month. So far, there have been two days where I haven't written a single thing, and for the rest I've managed at least 400 words.

I'm not going to feel deflated though, I see this is a personal victory. I've been getting into a rhythm with my writing and discovering when the best times are for me to sit down and do it properly. I've also noticed a pattern of which days appear more difficult to get any writing done. With a little more organisation I should be able to fit something in on these days too in future.

So far my efforts have mostly been from blog posts and my 30 minutes of free writing each day. What I'd like to focus on next is a target of completing at least one short story each month. I'll be taking things gradually though, building up a little at a time and not getting too overwhelmed with things.

So, what are you celebrating this week? Any plans for the weekend? Have a good one, whatever you're up to!

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My 500 Words - a 31 Day Challenge!

Firstly, a Happy New Year to you all! 

Now that 2013 is out of the way we can look forward to 2014 with hope and optimism, and what better way to do that than by starting straight off with a challenge!

I'm not making a long list of resolutions for this year, or goals that I want to achieve by a certain date.  Whenever I do this the list dwindles and falls by the wayside, I fail to achieve even half of them and I'm left feeling deflated and a bit of a failure. I'm not setting myself up for any kind of fall this year.

My one and only resolution is simple: to write. And hopefully every day.

Imagine my delight, then, when I came across this timely little challenge in my inbox this afternoon ...

 

This little gem was sent by Jeff Goins, and if you've never heard of him before I would recommend checking out his site and signing up for his newsletters. He is an inspiration to hard-working writers, whatever stage of the journey you're at, and his updates always seem to come at just the right time when I need a boost.

Like this one: My 500 words - a 31 day challenge 

It's come just at the right time for me, when I want to get my writing going again after a longer than intended sabbatical. 

The rules couldn't be simpler:

• Write 500 words per day, every day during the month of January.
• You can write more if you want, but 500 words is the minimum.
• Don’t edit. Just write.
• If you miss a day, pick up where you left off. Don’t make up for lost days.
• Encourage, don’t criticize (unless explicitly invited to do so).
• Blogging counts, but email does not.
• All of this is completely free.

If you want to join in too, just head on over to the sign-up page, add a comment and add your blog to the linkup. Don't forget to keep track of your progress throughout the month and there are Facebook and Twitter groups too.

So are you in? 

The beautiful thing about it is, blogging counts for your daily total and this little post is my first 377 words for today!

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