More Praises For The Nifty 350

I just wanted to update and encourage my fellow writers with this Nifty 350 idea. I haven’t blogged since January 10th. At that time I mentioned I started this Nifty 350 business on December 22nd.

Well let me share with you the astounding results of my Nifty 350-ing during the month of January. Today’s the 30th – just one more day left in this month and I’ve already written over 18,000 words this month simply by one little bitty writing session each morning.

Now it will be somewhere closer to 18,500-19,000 by the time I get tomorrow’s writing session in, but for sake of ease, let’s just say that each month you write 18,000 words.

18,000 words a month X 12 months = 216,000 words

WAHOO!!!!!! Do you know what that is? If you’re a historical writer, that’s about 2 novels a year!

If you write one of the shorter genres like romances and some others that average about 65,000 words, that’s over 3 novels a year!

Now I know if you’re a geeky number cruncher like me, you’re looking at those figures and saying “Hold it! That’s more then 350 words a day. What gives?”

Well the answer is the other plus to this method – most times when you sit down to write those 350 words, you end up writing more. I haven’t calculated it precisely but I probably average about 450 words a day.

Still more of you are out there saying “Well that’s nice but I can’t make myself sit and write on the same project day in and day out.”

The glory of it is, you don’t have to!!! I have writer friends who struggle with concentrating on only one project at a time. I myself have not been using my daily 350 for my current novel but for other story ideas to get concepts down on paper. But the numbers speak for themselves – even if you alternated your Nifty 350 time between two different projects, you can still finish two novels in a year!

Writers suffer a number of problems related to their chosen profession but the biggest problem is the one we create for ourselves – not writing. There’s a big difference between “wanting” to be a writer and being one. I know I will still consider myself a ‘wannabee’ until I finally complete and submit this first manuscript to an editor and an agent. Because that will mean I FINALLY followed through and FINISHED it.

But to do that, you have to write.

I have a dear friend who hasn’t written a new project in I don’t know how many years. Rarely does a week go by that I don’t encourage her to start writing. But she’s got lots of excuses for why she doesn’t. Now if she truly doesn’t want to write, that’s fine. No law against that. But I know she wants to sell projects and to gain recognition for her work. For all the altruistic motives we all espouse, what writer DOESN’T want to sell and get recognition for their long hard work?

But you can’t get recognized or sell anything if you don’t put your ideas into tangible written form.

And you can write those 350 words a day in an average of 20 minutes (some days it might take longer). Are we so full of excuses we can’t even find 20 minutes a day to write?

Come on, now. Make 2009 the year you get serious about your writing. 350 words at a time!