For this time.

Another Challenge down and congratulations for hanging in! It’s not so much the number of words but in the end, the fact that you’ve put writing in a place of importance in your life.

Whether your words flowed easily or whether you had to yank every single one from your fingertips kicking and screaming - you’re a writer. Keep it up.

Lauren
http://laurendane.com

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You joined, you wrote, you participated. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done, whether you wrote 1,000 words or 100,000. It’s all about the journey, the process, and what you learned about yourself as a writer. Take a step back now and figure out what you did well, and what you can do better next time.

Congratulations!

Jaci
http://www.jaciburton.com

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Congratulations to everybody who shared in the challenge. Whether you exceeded your goals, or didn’t quite reach them this time, you still took part and that shows commitment to your writing.
Well done! And may the lessons you’ve learned while ’sweating’ stay with you in the days and months to come.

Portia
http://wendyportia.blogspot.com

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You did it!! No matter how many words you got down on the page - you did it! You kept writing, kept trying, kept pushing. Some days were better than others. Some weeks seemed impossible. Some chapters just refused to come out the way you wanted. That’s all okay. The point is that you made a commitment and saw it through. That’s what matters. Now take that commitment and keep writing. This is only the beginning.

HelenKay
http://helenkaydimon.com/

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We’re done with another challenge, but none of us are done writing. Some days you might have exceeded your goals, and on others, you might not have come close to hitting them. But you tried. You signed up for the challenge, which means you WANTED to succeed. If you did, YOU ROCK!!!! If you didn’t, don’t beat yourself up. Sometimes life gets in the way. Get back in the saddle and pick a day to meet one of the daily goals you set for the challenge. Meet it. Then you’ll know you could. And keep doing it like that, because writing “The End,” is the ultimate goal.

Larissa
www.LarissaIone.com

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So another round is done. Chances are you did some writing, maybe more than you’d hoped, maybe less. But you wrote. That’s the key thing here. Writing isn’t something easily squeezed in when the mood hits. Serious writers—published or not—make themselves write regularly. That’s how stories get told. Word by word, line by line, page by page, chapter by chapter. That’s how the story gets written. Whatever you’ve learned this time around, keeping building on it. Keep working on it. Keep writing.

Shiloh
http://shilohwalker.com

“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.” — Sir William Churchill

We’re almost done with the challenge, but we’re not done writing. Keep going. Keep climbing. And above all else, enjoy the journey!

So this is it. The finish line is within view. How is everyone faring as we near the end?

So have you finished? Are you close? Even if you’re not, don’t give up. Sven isn’t a win/lose thing. As long as you keep writing, you win.

But for those that have already finished, if this is your first-or possibly your tenth ;)-some of you are probably wondering what next?

Well, there’s no easy answer to that. The thing with being a writer is that it doesn’t stop with the last word of the book. It doesn’t stop after you’ve finally finished that final, final draft. It doesn’t stop after you’ve had a friend read it for type-o’s, grammar, misspellings, etc.

Writing the book is really only the first step if you want to try to get it published. But every single one of us take a different route to getting published. Every one of us took a different route while trying to get published.

From here, you’ve got a few options. Do you think the book is ready for publication? Is it one you’d buy and read if somebody else wrote it? If so, then do your homework, start shopping around. Are you going to try for traditional publishing or maybe give e-publishing a start? Have you looked for an agents? Do you WANT an agent?

The internet is a vast resource for writers-maybe even a guidebook. You need to pick your route, but you’ve got options on which path to take.

Here are a few places to maybe help get you started-because beyond saying do your homework, I’m lousy at telling people what to do next. But others are great at it.

“I learned… that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.”

We’re down to the wire now. How did you do this week?

I remember getting advice from an author back when I was unpublished. She said something along the lines of: if you want it - deep down in your gut want it - and are willing to work at it and understand the harsh truth that being published is not something you’re entitled to but, rather, is something you have to earn, you’ll likely get published. For some reason, that advice has always stuck in my head. I thought about it the other day when I came across a quote by Phyllis Whitney. She said:

You must want to enough. Enough to take all the rejections, enough to pay the price of disappointment and discouragement while you are learning. Like any other artist you must learn your craft—then you can add all the genius you like.

Seems to me the authors are saying the same thing. I concur. Want it enough to take all of the bad stuff, knowing that achieving the good part is not a guarantee.

We’re almost finished.

Are you lagging, or picking up steam? I find I really push toward the end of these challenges, trying to make up for days where my productivity wasn’t so stellar. Plus I like to finish on a high note rather than just giving up or ending with some really bad numbers.

So on this last week of our writing challenge, give it a little push so you can triumph at the end. Even if you’ve had nothing but dreck the entire time, you can still get a lot done in a week.

Start now. You’d be amazed what you can accomplish in a short period of time.

If you’re lagging, give yourself a last minute push.

And if you’re writing steadily, keep going.

Write from the soul, not from some notion what you think the marketplace wants. The market is fickle; the soul is eternal.
Jeffrey A. Carver

I just finished a book at the end of last week. I fought this book hard! I had ideas about where I wanted it to go and it had different plans. This book gave me no end of difficulty! I wanted something funny and light but in the end, after struggling with a few hundred words here and there, I just gave it the reins.

I let the story tell itself and in the end, that’s all I can do. It worries me sometimes because there are some stories that as you write them, you know they will push buttons. As an author you want the story to be easy to read, you want to write it in such a way that readers respond. But sometimes, the story will push buttons, it’ll be dark or emotional and it can only be what it is.

I know the popular refrain is to write to market. But in truth, the business moves slow but trends change fast so unless you’re right there when the trend hits, chances are by the time you finish and get the manuscript subbed, the trend will have moved on.

In the end, all you have is the story trying to get out. Tell that story and you will find readers. Trends are trends, but a well told story can have vampires or secret babies or greek millionaires or none of the above and move mountains.

Tell your story.

The challenge will soon be over. Who’s up for a final, intense push of creativity to reach their personal goal?

Report your thoughts and progress.