Friday Forays in Fiction: Writing Challenges

A Round of Words in 80 Days

What am I thinking?  I'm not even at home.  My time isn't even all my own to dispose of as I see fit.  I've got eight review copy reviews owed.  I've got half a dozen crocheted gifts with due dates before summer's end.  I've got and I've got and I've got...

So why am I thinking of joining another writing challenge?

And not just one!

Well as I discussed in my recent post To Rule or Not to Rule I have developed an aversion to my fiction files between NaNos for the last several years.  This is partly due to having made such a mess of them in the rush to get the word count.  And apparently partly due to not having some accountability.

I was just thinking the other day how much I miss Sven our 70 Days of Sweat Mascot.  I participated at least twice and planned to keep on participating but the site has not revived a challenge in over two years now.

Then lo but if I didn't stumble onto a challenge modeled on 70 Days.  It is called ROW80 or A Round of Words in 80 Days and is billed as a writing challenge that knows you have a life.

And it seems you can set your own goals and they can include things other than word count.  Things like editing existing manuscripts, outlining or plotting a new novel, amount of time devoted to writing each day.  Anything as long as it is measurable and conducive to establishing the habits necessary to being a writer.

And it runs four times a year beginning on the first Mondays of January, April, July and October.  With check-ins on the ROW80 blog every Sunday and Wednesday.

So since I've identified the mess in my fiction files created by the 8 NaNos and 2 or three 70 Days of Sweat challenges as the worst stumbling block keeping me from working my fiction WIP and also since I'm jumping in at nearly the mid point of round 2 for 2012, I'm going to set my goals for between now and the end of June accordingly:

Spend 30 minutes or more per day reading a book on Writing from the ever growing TBR of books on writing.  Will compile list for future updates.


Spend 30 minutes or more per day daydreaming in the story world with pencil and pad at hand


Spend 30 minutes or more per day on one or more of the following tasks:

• Input any material from the daydreaming session into it's appropriate file or task list.
• Clean up the 8 NaNo novel files: quarantine the mess, create work space for new writing, and create a system for  storing the material salvaged from the mess in such a way as it can be found when needed. i.e. linking it to appropriate topic pages in the FOS story world worksheet file
• Read and notate the scene text of the 8 NaNo novel files
• Create a master task list in FOS story world worksheet file and add any actionable task that comes to mind while working with the files: research and fact check, character development, scenes needed etc.  Future goals can be taken from this list.
• Create topic pages in the FOS story world worksheet file for every character from every existing story and novel finished or in progress that is set in this story world.  Add any of the characters known life events to the master timeline.
• Choose 10 POV level characters from FOS and write a first person rambling monologue for them.
• Do a line edit of all of the completed short stories 
• During the line edits consider whether any significant revision is still needed--scenes to add or delete, rearrange or rewrite; timeline issues, facts to confirm or to change--and create an actionable task topic in the file.
• Write fresh scenes whenever a spark is lit by the above work.

Camp NaNoWriMmo 2012

And then on June 1st start making another mess