Laziness, Writer's Block, and Stubborn Students-In Which I Complete the 100-for-100

Ahem.

*cues deep narrator voice*

100 days ago (well technically 101 now), Emma started the Go Teen Writers 100-for-100 challenge, and yesterday, September 13, it finished. 

*meep* 

I thought about doing this huge long sappy post about the lessons I learned from doing it, but was like "Meh. I'm not in the mood for writing all of that stuff out." So I'll just leave you with this:

Congrats to everyone (including me) who finished it!!!!!!!!!!! 

Okay, seriously, who am I kidding. OF COURSE I had to do a sappy post about it!!!!!! 

So yes, the 100-for-100 challenge ended today. That means I've written at least 100 words for the past 100 days. 

It's crazy. This is the longest time in my entire life that I've written for. every. single. day. One word to sum up this whole challenge is...

Yuppers, it was quite the wild ride. But it was also a good ride and I discovered a ton about myself and writing by doing it. 😉

Thus, here are 5 Key Takeaways I learned from doing the challenge. 

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1. You have the time to write. MAKE IT HAPPEN. 

So I'd heard the whole "you-don't-have-the-time-you-MAKE-the-time" lecture before starting the 100-for-100, but I had never really realized how much that saying changed my life. Before the 100-for-100, I knew that I had the time to write-but I didn't make the time. 

Confused? 

Let me put it this way: I did have time to write before, but instead of writing, I used that time to do other things, and actually, some of those things were not the greatest. 

~YouTube.

~Pinterest. 

~Laying around on my bed literally doing nothing. 

~Reading (*coughs* not necessarily reading actual books, mind you. More like random news articles and looking up pieces of information and getting distracted reading something that might not even tie directly into the question I looked up). 

Basically, I was wasting my time. Not that the above things are bad, but I was spending too much time scrolling instead of writing. 

But once I started the 100-for-100 and I forced myself to sit and write...it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. And writing 100 words does NOT take long people. Sometimes I could do it in less than 10 minutes.

Here's another example. Back in January, when I participated in Crazy Writing Week, I wrote for 17.08 hours that week and got in close to 11,000 words. Just in one week! (now mind you, that was over several various projects, some school-related, but still. 😜) 

Point is, when you force yourself to make the time to write, you'll be surprised to see how productive you can be. You'll probably write a lot in a short time and find times to write that you had never thought of writing in before (for example, when I was attending the YDubs Conference in August, I knew that I wouldn't have time during the day to get my 100 words in and by the end of the day, I knew that I would be too tired to write. So I wrote in the car when we were driving to the conference center). 

2. When you write, you're using your creative juices. 

Have you ever decided to watch YouTube, play a video game, or do some other mundane thing and haven't felt refreshed when you're done? That's cause you're not doing the most creative or challenging things. When I say "challenging," I don't mean that it literally has to be super hard like doing Algebra 2 math *coughs*. What I mean is that you're using your brain cells to make something and you're using your imagination. 

And I believe that writing requires A LOT of imagination. By doing the 100-for-100, I wrote so much and sometimes the creative juices were flowing and when I was done for the day, I felt good. Ya know why? Cause I used my brain. I was creative and used words to make a story come alive and made progress on a challenge. 

God didn't call us to watch YouTube or sit on the couch scrolling through the news. God made us to be creative creatures. Goodness, God is the Master of Creativity. Think about it. How creative does God have to be to make every. single. human. being totally unique? If that's not creativity, I don't know what is. 

The point is, when you write, you'll feel accomplished. And the same goes for any other artistic activity. Any creative art such as drawing, composing music, constructing, or playing a board game uses your brain and you'll make something wonderful. 

3. You CAN beat writer's block (or at least work around it 😉).

If you're competitive like me, and don't want to miss a day in a challenge, you WILL find something to write. 

Some days you'll look like this when you write:

You're typing as fast, as you can, the creative juices are flowing, and the words are just spilling out of your brain onto that pretty piece of paper. It's an amazing feeling. 

But other days...you might feel like this:

It's badddd. You're tired, you're sick of your WIP, and you're blankly staring at the screen of your computer. Not a single word has been typed yet, and you just wanna go watch YouTube. 

I have had those days. I understand your pain. XD

BUT just because there were days where I literally had no idea what to do, that didn't mean I gave up.  Sometimes I would outline or skip to another scene that I was excited for or at least feeling better about. *coughs* Some days I would just even separate contractions like "that's" to "that is" just so I could just be one word closer to getting to 100 for the day. 

The point is, even if you feel like you have writer's block, there's always something you can work on. Whether it be another WIP or developing your characters or outlining...there's always something. 

Don't give up just because your brain isn't working the best at the moment. Take a breather, go outside, eat something yummy and come back and try to get those words down. 

Also, find what time is the best for you to write. I focus the best in the mornings, so that's when I would get my words in because I knew that was when I would do my best work and probably write the most. Yes, there were days where I couldn't do that and had to wait until the night (which is when my brain is tired and it's hard to make up words) and I had to push through. But if it's possible, try to find what time is the best for you and write during that. 

4. Tiny steps=Big Results

Let me tell ya a little story. One day, my music teacher had a student who was being difficult. Said Student (let's just call him Gabe* because I don't want to keep calling him "student" 😜) did not want to play this certain song because he said that it was easy, boring, and didn't like it. Even though this was only the third lesson that Gabe had taken, he believed that he could play a really difficult song. 

So my music teacher decided to put Gabe in his place. She flipped to a random page in the middle of his piano book, set it on the piano, and told him he could play that song since he wanted something harder. 

Do you think Gabe could play that piece? 

Yeah. No.

Gabe couldn't even play the piano with both hands together at the same time yet! Gabe had to learn that he just couldn't sit down and play "Fur Elise" or "Moonlight Sonata" without even practicing the "easy" stuff at first. He had to realize that he couldn't become an amazing pianist by leaping from "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to Mozart's "Piano Sonata in D Major, K. 576." The only way to get to playing the difficult piano pieces is to take tiny steps and build your way up. Without a firm foundation of basic theory and "baby" songs, Gabe was not going to succeed. 

SO, the reason why I explained all of that was because the whole idea of tiny steps making big results applies to writing. Just like how practicing easy songs (tiny steps) will lead you to performing more challenging pieces (big results) being consistent in writing (even if it's small) will give you big results.

Some days, you'll only have time to or feel like writing one sentence. But that's okay. That's still something. So don't hesitate to write that sentence down and don't feel bad that you didn't work on your WIP for three hours. You still got a sentence down. That's progress. You don't have to write 5,000 words every day. In fact, I don't recommend that lol. You'll probably burn out pretty if you're not an advanced writer and haven't built up the stamina. Start out small and work your way up.

5. Finally...it's okay to write an imperfect story. 

As Marita Wilson (a leader in the Young Writer's Workshop) once said "It's okay to love something flawed." 

Yeah, your writing is not perfect. It will never be perfect. It can't be perfect. Because we, imperfect, flawed sinners can never make anything flawless. It's impossible. 

But we still can make something. We can still write a story. 

I know, I know, if you're a perfectionist, then this might be hard to read. It's hard for me to read (and I wrote this out. XDD)! 

One of the hardest things for me in writing is that I feel like it has to be perfect. And so I would either 1) avoid writing because I didn't want to write something that wouldn't be good or 2) write something and hate it and spend a bunch of time either trying to edit it or just trash it later. If it can't be perfect, then why even try? 

Because people need it. People need to read your stories. You were given this beautiful, wonderful, special talent to make words come alive. That's pretty impressive. 

And the 100-for-100 helped me realize that you can't be a good writer if you don't accept that your writing is good-not perfect. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's okay to love it. 

Think about it. Some of your favorite books aren't perfect. They may seem like they are, but trust me, there's a flaw somewhere in it, because again, Nothing Is Perfect. 

So write that story. It's going to be good not perfect. 

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Overall, the 100-for-100 made me a more consistent writer and I grew and discovered so much about my writing journey and what helps/doesn't help me when I write. 

I'm really glad that I did the 100-for-100 Challenge. To be honest, I thought I was going to totally fail...but I didn't. And I'm kinda proud of myself. XDD 

One reason I believe why I didn't quit was because I had 5 amazing writers and even more amazing sister-friends who were the best accountability partners this girl could have for this challenge! A HUGE shout out goes to...

Katherine Perry @Teen Writers Nook!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much for introducing me to this challenge in the first place!!! I adored reading all of your snippets from your WIP!!

Issabelle Perry @ Teen Writers Nook!!!!!!!!! It was so fun writing with you, my friend! Thanks for putting up with me when I abandoned y'all for volley of ball instead of joining in on the sprints those first few weeks. 😜.

Tasha Van Kesteren @Tasha Van Kestern!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much for committing to the group, girlie! You're an epic writer and your amazing encouragement meant so much to me!!! 

Rylie!!!!!!!!! Ahhh sweet friend, thanks for all of the kind words you gave me and the fun, crazy talks we had about our WIPs! I'm glad you joined!!!

Also, shout-out to a pretty cool human named Victoria Crooks @ Soli Deo Gloria who made the wise decision to drop out of the challenge because of Life. Even though she didn't finish, she still encouraged me and listened to me when I was rambling about Things that probably didn't make Sense. XD 

You guys are the best Scribes ever! Love y'all! 💖

Okay. That's enough with the sap. XDD Here's an update on my actual writing during the challenge. 

✏ 📓WRITING NEWS 📝📖

For the 100-for-100, I wrote 17,390 words in outlining and in the first draft of my (for now) super-secret WIP. As of the actual draft I have 18,079 words. 😎 Pretty good if I do say so myself. But that also means............

.........I'm a lil burned out on my WIP because I've worked so hard on it for the past 100 days lol. 

So I'm stepping back from it and I'm gonna not work on the draft for the next few weeks. I need to re-think some things that I found out as I drafted it because my little writer brain had to throw some curveballs at me that I did not expect. XP

BUT as I'm letting that WIP sit for a while, I'm going to work on some other projects that I'm SUPER excited about and haven't gotten to work on much because of the 100-for-100. In fact, remember this post where I mentioned that I'll have a special post soon? Well, next Tuesday you're gonna get to see that post. ;) 

So stay tuned for that, go be an epic writer, and implement those 5 lessons I taught you if you want to be a cool human. Or not. Whatever. I don't care. You're cool as you are. XDD

*Disclaimer: I'm sorry to anyone out there named Gabe who is an amazing musician, works hard, and doesn't complain about playing the easy stuff. Gabe was literally the first name that popped into my mind, and so I just went with it. 

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If you did the challenge, first off CONGRATS for doing it and secondly, how did it go? Did you survive and make a ton of progress or almost die and have to drop out (if you did than that's perfectly okay, don't beat yourself up about it <3)

If you DIDN'T do the challenge, how is your writing?