I Had 100 Days To Write A Book . . .

Back in September, TARA launched the 100 x 100 challenge—to write at least 100 words a day for 100 days, with the ultimate goal being to finish the book in time for our holiday party.

I started out well as evinced here, even though I didn’t like the story I was writing—this is not a book of the heart, but a book from the bowels—and on most days I wrote over 1,000 words, occasionally topping 2,000.

But alas, I did not finish it. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I was hit with a nasty bronchial ailment that took out all engines and instruments, and I spun down in flames before finally crashing and burning on Day 88.

Yet in those 88 days, I wrote 93,603 words. As the book is supposed to be a Regency historical romance (with as much emphasis as you can pile on supposed), the targeted word count was between 90-95,000 words. So even though I didn’t finish the story, I did prove to myself that at least in theory, I can write a full length book in 100 days—but only if I know where the story is going. In this case, who knows. I’ve been stumbling around in the dark with it, tripping over writer’s blocks and falling into plot holes, or I might well have finished it by now.

This book has a very bright future under my bed. To borrow a phrase from the Queen of England, for me 2008 was an annus horribilus in terms of my writing.

Meanwhile, I’m still coughing out what little remains of my innards, yet I don’t seem to have lost any weight. Let that be my penalty.