Have a writing project to finish this month? Join #ProjectAugust
I attend at least two writing conferences each year—the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association Conference and the Surrey International Writers’ Conference. Both are fun and offer great courses, events, and opportunities to network, but I mainly attend for the opportunity to fully, one hundred percent immerse myself in the profession of writing. Three entire days where I eat, sleep and dream everything writing.
Being part of a writing community is important to me because it immerses me in what I love and feeds my soul. This month, through author kc dyer’s blog, I have an opportunity to immerse myself in another kind of writing community.
Do you have a writing project or any writing goals you’d like to achieve this month? Need some extra motivation and a community to do it in? Dyer is offering #ProjectAugust this month—an opportunity to make yourself accountable to finish whatever project you choose.
My project for #ProjectAugust is to finish the first draft of my current fantasy manuscript. If I write 1,000 words a day—about 3.5 pages for me—it should be complete. Despite my hectic, busy business life, I know I can commit to this and in order to help me achieve my goals, I’m going to pull out my standard helpers:
- A large wall calendar to place a big red X on each day I complete my word count;
- My crockpot for easy, home-made meals;
- Posting my word count to www.750words.com
- Posting weekly updates on kc’s blog to keep myself accountable.
For more tips on how to keep yourself accountable and achieve your writing goals, check out my earlier post, “Seven Tips for NaNoWriMo Success.”
I hope you join me for #ProjectAugust!
onewildword 
Great tips for maintaining motivation.Thanks for sharing
Keeping accountable is amazing for productivity, you are quite right. Midway through June I had a publisher become interested in a sci fi novel of mine (that I had only written the opening chapter of at the time) and they said they needed a draft to look at by mid-October. I agreed, though the blood drained out of my head (I’d previously been working on a fantasy manuscript that was up to 85,000 and that had taken me the best part of 2 years) but I thought I’d be daft not to. I work full time and have a busy social life but since being given the deadline I have managed 70,000 words since mid-June. I have simply made the time. There is still a long way to go (thank you for bringing #ProjectAugust to my attention, I may well join in to give my productivity a boost this month) but it is amazing the difference having a deadline or being accountable can make.
And, I tell you what, never once has it been a chore or a slog. Getting so much done feels amazing and I’m loving every minute.
Maybe see you on twitter for #ProjectAugust 🙂
Congratulations on getting interest in your novel and getting so much done in a short period! Now, that’s inspiring!
thank you very much! My fingers are crossed and we’ll see where it goes but thanks again for this post about #ProjectAugust, I am going to use it to make August the big-achievement-month (i.e. get as much of the draft complete as possible so I have the ending and redrafting to play with in September) 🙂