It’s a beautiful, sunny morning where Sven is. The kids are out looking for Easter eggs, and Sven started off the day with two shots of wheatgrass, a pot of coffee, and a leisurely, 18-mile run.

How’s the writing going? Check in here.

You might have been dealing with the time change, Spring Fever, or blizzards, but how did you deal with your word count? Time to ‘fess up!

So, you’ve had a week now to get into the zone. How’s it going? Are you hitting those targets? Or still struggling to maintain your momentum?

Time to compare notes.

It’s Wednesday. You’ve had a few days to get started, work on a routine and find a rhythm. How are you doing? Good news, bad news - tell Sven all about it.

4) Time permitting, you can check out the blogs of your sponsors or fellow sweaters, links on the sidebar.

Okay folks. Who’s ready for a third round?

Got a deadline about ready to bite you on the tail?

Need a kick to help jumpstart a stalled WIP?

70 Days of Sweat Round 3 will start on March 1. The sponsors, Diana Peterfreund, HelenKay Dimon, Jaci Burton, Larissa Ione, Lauren Dane, Portia Da Costa, and Shiloh Walker invite you to join in.

Basically, 70 Days of Sweat is designed to challenge (naturally), support, and encourage those of us crazy enough to write a book in 70 days. At the end, we’re looking for a word count between 60-100K. We’ve built an extra week into this round, so technically you have 77 days to sweat meaning . . . Round 3 will run from March 1 to May 16.

The original post from Round 1 can be found here. If this is your first time to play, read that, then come back here and sign up!

Who’s not afraid to sweat?

1) Sign-up on the javascript form below

2) Post a comment and tell us about your goals

(Use the email link beneath the blogroll on the sidebar if you need to be added there.)

From Jo Leigh:

Here’s to you ‘you valiant few,’ who have battled the holidays, the overindulgences of parties, houseguests, children home from school, nasty weather, and all the normal, everyday stuff that makes not writing seem like the wisest course. You’ve taken major steps to becoming, to being, professional writers and now it’s time to acknowledge who you are and what you’ve accomplished.

Even if you didn’t reach your stated goal, even if you just wrote once when it would have been easier to skip it, give yourself a hand.

This is a tough business. I’m not talking about the agent-getting or the selling of the book. I mean the discipline and persistence that is perhaps the most important part of the job.

There is no possibility that you, as a professional writer, will not face difficult times. To paraphrase: There Will Be All Manner of Crap. Sickness, emergencies, computer meltdowns, editorial changes…the list goes on and on. Those with discipline and persistence will triumph. Those without will get other jobs. It’s as simple, and as amazingly difficult as that.

So pat yourself on the back, have a cookie or a drink or watch a beloved movie, then get back to it. This is the job. And the rewards are awesome.

From Lauren Dane:

Congratulations to you all for making it to the end! You took up the challenge and whether you got 100K words or 10K - you wrote. You worked and got blocked, you succeeded and failed but you kept at it. And guess what? That’s being a writer.

From Portia Da Costa:

I’d just like to send out a big, congratulatory hug to everyone who took part in the Sweat with Sven Challenge.

Some of us will have written many, many thousands of words. Some of us maybe only a few thousand or less. Some of us will have met and exceeded our goals with flying colours. Others, like me, may have fallen short of our goal amounts, to a greater or lesser degree.

But what’s important is that we all took part and we were all in it together… and we’re all going to continue to write regularly in our own personal challenges in the days to come.

Happy Writing, guys!

From Shiloh Walker:

So Sven’s over and done. “Did you finish” isn’t the big question. The big questions is… “Are you writing more?”

The key to being a writer is to write. Not one a week or when the spirit moves you, because if you plan on having more than a book or two out on the shelves, you have to write whether you want to or not. There will be issues outside of writing you can’t control~ there will be edits, there will family issues, there will be times when you’re sick, there will be holidays…but there will also be deadlines and deadlines aren’t met by writing as a hobby.

So whether you finished your book or not, if Sven got you in the habit of writing on a regular basis, then you succeeded.

From Jaci Burton:

It’s the end, and whether you wrote 100,000 words or just 1,000, pat yourself on the back. You participated and you succeeded. There is no failure if you try. The holidays are a tough time for anyone to write, but you had the guts to sign up and want to do it. So many writers never even make the attempt, for fear of failing, or make up a litany of excuses for why they can’t. You were one who thought you could. Congratulations! I hope you enjoyed it and it wasn’t too painful for you. I always find joining a group like this to be helpful in my writing. Writing is such a solitary endeavor. It’s always nice to know there are others like me out there struggling to make it work every single day. I hope that whatever successes you had, that you continue to push forward every day. Don’t ever quit!

From Larissa Ione:

Well, you made it! And even if you didn’t reach all of your goals, give yourself a break. There’s a reason so many authors refuse to schedule deadlines during the holidays! Keep writing, and keep challenging yourself. Sven’s a great task-master, but ultimately, you’re your best motivator. We’ll see you next time!

From HelenKay Dimon:

This one was tough. Between the holidays, the family get-togethers, trips, illnesses and everything else going on, getting the words down on paper in some coherent form was not easy. But you did it. Maybe you did not write as much as you wanted. Who cares? You wrote. During one of the most frenetic times of the year, you hung in there and kept typing. That’s commitment. It’s also a reminder that the work is important. With everything else that happens - family, friends, work, whatever - you need to make time for your dreams. Your work. Your writing. Never forget that. Whether you wrote five chapters or 500 pages, you kept going. Congratulations! Your only job now is to continue. Let this be a spark to continue, to finish and then to start something new. And, until next time…keep writing!

From Sven:

Don’t think I won’t be back.

Check back around the first of February. We hope to know more about Round #3 by then, and don’t forget the sidebar poll asking if you’re in for another round! Congratulations to you all!

Words?