Fiction Friday: The Randy Ingermansson Challenge

I get a monthly email from Randy Ingermanson called The Advanced Fiction Writer's Newsletter. Randy is a fiction writer and a purveyor of great writing tips, so it's one of the mailings I get that I actually read. He also holds a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics, which may be why he seems so smart.

This month, he put out an interesting challenge: Write 500 words a day. Every day--on your birthday, on Christmas, if you're sick or if you're well. For the rest of your life. No rollover words--the counter resets at midnight. Also, tweaking existing words doesn't count. They need to be fresh.

His reasoning is that people who want to become professional fiction writers can churn out 500 words with their eyes closed.

Which is, well, true.

I'm not sure I'm up for every-day-for-the-rest-of-my-life, but I'm committing right here, right now, before God and the entire blogging community, to add at least 500 words a day to my current manuscript until I complete a first draft. Which means I should complete that draft by the end of September.

So there you go, Rachel Cotterill. Set aside a few days at the beginning of October, because you're going to have some reading to do.