500 Words A Day Challenge
NOTE: If you’d like to aim for 1000 words, please visit the 1000 Words A Day Challenge instead. If you’re not sure you can do 500 words, try for 250 Words A Day instead.
The goal of the 500 Words A Day Challenge is simple: to inspire writers to write.
Too often, I find that writers start motivational challenges like NaNoWrimo with enthusiasm and good intentions, but give up when they start missing their daily targets for more than a few days in a row…undermining their confidence and defeating the purpose of the original challenge.
I also wanted a challenge that lasted the whole year rather than just a month.
Hence, the 500 Words A Day Challenge.
What are the rules?
Try to write 500 words a day, at least six days a week.
As long as you are sincerely and consistently TRYING to write 1000 words a day, then you can post the badge on your blog or website. If life occasionally gets in the way, that’s ok — as long as you promise yourself to get back on the wagon as soon as you can. If you sometimes don’t reach 500 words, that’s also ok — but try again the next day.
The badge has to link back to the 500 Words A Day Challenge page (the page you’re reading right now).
Where can I get the badges?
You can choose from a selection of badges.
What’s to stop someone from posting the badge just for show?
Nothing. But since there are no prizes other than personal, the writer is only cheating herself.
Be honest with yourself. If many days pass without you giving full effort to meeting your daily wordcount goal, then take the badge off your site. If you’re going on a long vacation and you know you’re unlikely to be doing any writing, then you should take the badge off your site. For the Challenge to work for you, the badge has to mean something.
Do I have to report or post on my progress?
Not unless you want to. I do find that being held accountable somehow helps with motivation, though, so I encourage you to post about your progress on your own blogs, or on Inkygirl when I do my weekly Word Challenge Check-In.
What if I can only write 250 words a day instead of 500?
Feel free to suggest other wordcounts. If there is enough demand, I’ll make more badges.
What if I can consistently write -more- than 500 words a day?
Good for you! Then go for the 1000 Words A Day Challenge!
What type of writing counts toward the challenge?
Again, this is up to you to decide. Some writers may just want to count words written for a first draft of a novel. Others may want to include how many words they’ve revised. Still others may count ANY words they’ve written, including blogs, Twitter, non-fiction, outlining, poetry and other writing. As Chris Brogan says, writing begets writing.
SOME TIPS:
If you don’t reach 500 words one day, don’t try to make up for it by writing extra words the next day (though feel free to write extra, of course!) — that increases your chance for repeated failure, which increases discouragement and the tendency to give up on your 500 words a day goal. DON’T GIVE UP.
SOME USEFUL TOOLS:
Simple word counters
Writertopia Wordcount Script: just paste in your text, hit SUBMIT and you’ll get back the number of words.
Enso Words: Enso is free and runs on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. Spellcheck, wordcount, other features.
General wordcount trackers
Curious Device: another little progress meter: straightforward word counter.
Writertopia progress meter: provides two graphical progress meters that can be embedded in your web page or blog.
Yahoo widget wordcount: written for NaNoWriMo, but looks like it could be used for a general wordcount.
Wordcount tools for Wordpress
ProgPress: A progress meter plugin for Wordpress by Jason Penney. This is the one I’m using (see right-hand navigation bar) because I can track multiple projects within one widget. Jason writes:
Thanks for mentioning ProgPress. If anyone tries it out and has any feedback/suggestions, I’m always glad to hear them. Good luck to everyone participating. I know you can do it!
Scribometer Progress meter by David Anaxagoras. David writes:
Hi Debbie! The 1,000 words a day challenge is a great idea. I’ve updated my Scribometer progress meter WordPress widget to track any unit the user wants to measure, so now it can be used for words as well as script pages or cups of coffee consumed.
Murray’s Wordcount Wordpress Plugin: wordcount for a post
{ 41 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for mentioning ProgPress. If anyone tries it out and has any feedback/suggestions, I’m always glad to hear them.
Good luck to everyone participating. I know you can do it!
I’m in!
What a great challenge. I’m sorry to say I’m not up to it right now, but maybe in September?
I’m going to give the writing a shot.
But the Enso tool is so very fabulous. It has to be the most intuitive tool I have ever installed and learned to use.
500 is a good number for those of us with limited time to write. I’m enjoying this challenge very much! Thanks Inkygirl
i just found this…and i’m thrilled! i’m gonna give it a whirl! i’m excited.
Yea! I’ve been seriously missing NaNo this month… 500 words a day seems like a great motivator to get me going again. Thank you!
Hey, great site.
I’m so glad I found this challenge; it is just the motivation I needed!
I’m sure I write more than 500 words a day but most of it isn’t productive. I’ve been feeling frustrated with myself. I can use help disciplining myself to write 500 words on the story I started, stopped, started and stopped and started again.
I’ve switched to 500 from 1000 a day, since I need time to plot and think about characters etc (oh yeah, and write my 2 blogs) but this is SO great and I am writing every day again, can’t thank you enough for putting this together!
Wonderful idea! I’m doing a 500 word Summer challenge so I’m down with the cause. Great site! Love the comics!
Hey, I thought of writing a book last night, then I look at my dashboard and see this, sounds cool. But before I can start this I must get the characters and setting properly developed.
I am sooo tempted to enter the 1000 words challenge. But I’ll stay firmly on the ground and stick to this one. Though mostly I get over 1000 w daily, I can’t guarantee it will be like this each day for the rest of the year…especially when the exams start in September…
Thanks, Inkygirl!
Hi there! I’ve just joined up for the 500 words a day challange and thought I’d let you know.
This is a great idea. I am so glad I found you.
Thanks, Inkygirl!
Hi there! I’ve just joined up for the 500 words a day challenge and thought I’d let you know.
This is a great idea. I am so glad I found you.
Thanks, Inkygirl!
Oops! Sending this again – forgot to check my spelling LOL
Thanks so much for this! Been looking for something like this for a while now! Brilliant! I’m in! =)
500.1 done. Looking forward to six of these a week.
I just did wrote 550 some words before even fully committing to the 500 word challenge (over-thinking and procrastinating, you know, “I’ll do this tomorrow!”). But I did it, and it wasn’t the bloody hell I imagined it to be–THANK YOU! I stuck the badge on my blogs!
Interesting!!!I can do this.
This sounds like an interesting idea. I’ll have to take on this challenge for myself and see if I fail epically or not. By the way, those are some pretty spiffy badges.
i’m going to have to try this along with the word counters listed above. thanks so much for the resources, though i generally only use microsoft word and its word counter
I giving it a go and yep already started:). I writing a book and publishing it on my blog as I go along. The posts are edited and final but could be revised easily. I’m posting todays unyet written work on my blog here.
http://www.kirbysink.blogspot.com
Awesome site Debbie and I like your cartoons. I like sketching and painting I have a blog about that also.
http://www.kirbysart.blogspot.com
~Kirby
*raises hand* I vote for a 250-word-a-day badge
Great idea. I’m starting an unofficial 250-words-a-day challenge
Thank you. This is a great idea.
This is an excellent site and I’m in too for the writing challenge!
hey- this is great… 500 words is like on short article for me… My goal( i have procrastenated for this year) was 10 articles a day! That’s 10 times this goal…
I will go on and join for the next year.
My second goal was to post a complete web page.. It’s there it is just not running..
So, 1 goal here… thanks- jenia
Great challenge! I actually spent a few weeks doing this challenge before I but a badge up. I didn’t want to psyche myself out. lol It’s a nice steady pace for me and I’ve written a rough three sturdy chapters, so thanks!
This is great! I have limited time to write, so the 500 words a day challenge is the best right now.
I’ve been doing this for a week now just to get the hang of it and see how consistent I can be and I’m always so proud of myself when I reach more than 500 words. So now I’ll post a badge too, didn’t want to jinx it
I do hope to expand this into a 500 words a day flash fiction (mostly because I just started writing fiction a few months ago) as I go, but for now it’s just gonna be everything I write combined.
PS: you’ve overlooked something, in that paragraph about what the rules are, right after the all caps TRYING it should be 500 instead of 1000 words
500 words a day sounds doable. As Margaret Atwood said, “A word after a word after a word is power.”
And, this challenge is just what I need to keep my focus on that NaNoWriMo draft. Thanks!
If it’s not too late I would love to join up for this challenge. I need to get my self ready for WriYe challenge and this will help a lot.
Is there a specific time span that this challenge is going for? If not, I’d love to join!!
Hey, this sounds awesome. I will definetely be joining either this or the 1000 words a day.
I figure if I can type 50 wpm while my mind is racing, then I could complete 500 words in 10 minutes. However, given the stops and starts of my creativity, at 25 wpm it could take 20 minutes of focus without interruptions. If it is distracted “spot typing” throughout the day, I still think I can sincerely try to complete 500 words a day.
Good reasoning, Elizabeth! You’ve hooked me this year, Debbie. I’m in. But I’m counting every word I write in my outline and character notes. I need to be reassured that planning=good.
Okay, I’ll sign up. I have to finish this ms anyway, so why not get some motivation to help me along.
And here I go! I will commit to 500 words for 6 days each week. I love things like this and know they help keep me moving toward my goal. Thanks for doing this for us!
I’m in. Going for 500 words a day and then I’ll feel really good about myself when I exceed my goal.
I’ll be doing this! Hopefully I’ll get good enough so that I can move up to the 1,000 words a day challenge.
Thanks for doing this, Inkygirl! Three cheers for you!
God bless,
~Laura
I was going to do 250 words, but I chose 500 to challenge myself (I’m a slow writer). Thanks…
If this comment counts, I’ve just rounded 412 words for the day.
Thank you for the inspiration! In my head I’m trying for 1,000, but if I hit 700 or 800 good words, I’m happy with that, so a 500 minimum is perfect.
Enjoying your blog!
I’m done with a ms, so have to dig in and work on something else! I was such a wimp, Inky. I coulda been a contender for those 1000 words. *hits head with palm of hand repeatedly*