2500 Words

Having trouble breaking through that concrete wall known affectionately as Writer’s Block? Join the club. No, really: Join the CLUB. Jessica of Slacker Mom Speaks and I  have started a 2500-word challenge to share the pain with our readers. That’s you!

Here’s the challenge:

Write  2500 words a day, whatever thoughts come to mind, no editing.

Commit to writing 2500 words a day. Doesn’t matter what you write about. You can do a Jack Nicholson and type, “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy,” over and over if you want. Eventually, your creative brain will rebel and you will start writing other things, capturing what’s really going on in that head of yours out of sheer boredom. And before you know it, you’ll have material for a blog post [or two or three], or an ebook, or a whole course — or maybe an actual BOOK. It could happen!

Just do it with us, and we can spur each other on. Comment here, or tweet about your word count with the hashtag #2500wds, so we can congratulate each other on how fantabulous we are.

Remember:

• Write 2500 words a day, but any amount counts.
• Commit to doing this for a month, longer if you like.
• Write about anything that comes to mind.
• NO EDITING!
• Comment here or tweet when you’re done with the hashtag #2500wds.
• Check into our new Facebook group [thanks, Peggie!] for writing prompts, discussions and friendship. :)
• At the end of the month, don’t stop. If you want to scale back, choose a number you can reasonably manage every day, 1,000 words or 750 words or whatever works for you, like Alexia Petrakos’ Morning Pages challenge.
• Make writing every day a lifelong habit. [But be sure to take reasonable breaks, like weekends off, so you don't burn out!]

I know, 2500 words sounds like a lot. Well, it is.

And at first, it will take a long time to get up to that number. You will want to give up. Don’t. Keep trying. If you don’t make it at first, don’t beat yourself up about it. Just try again tomorrow. But keep trying and really push through the hard part when you absolutely want to stop. Because that’s when the magic starts.

Trust me on this, there is magic in this process. You will find that you can write much more than you ever thought you could, and that you’re a much better writer than you thought you were. You will find nuggets of ideas that will spark even more creativity, and your brain will suddenly realize that the brakes are OFF —

— and look out then, because amazing things will happen.

Update: Look! We have a badge! Grab it and use it on your blog however you would like — and link back to this page so others can find the challenge, okay? Here’s the code that you can copy and paste into a widget – but please download the image [right-click the image and Save As] then put it on your own server, to save on my bandwidth — thanks.

<a href=”http://flaky.me/2500wds”><img src=”http://YOURDOMAIN.COM/PATH-TO-IMAGES-FOLDER/2500-125×117.png” alt=”2500 Words” title=”2500 Words” width=”125″ height=”117″ /></a>

Thanks to @PeterAhrens for the beautiful badge. Peter is a fabulous nature photographer whose site is almost ready to launch. I’ll link to it when he gives me the okay. You will be STUNNED by his work. Thank you, Peter!