Seventy Days of Sweat - The Reboot

 

Almost seven years ago a new writing challenge was begun. It helped a large number of authors get those words down and then slowly for various reasons it drifted away. Now with Alison Kent's blessing I'm shaking it up and bringing it back.

Here is what Alison Kent said in the original post announcing the challenge:


I’m sure you’ve all heard of the National Novel Writing Month where the goal of the participants is to write 50,000 words during the month of November. You’ve probably also heard of the Book-in-a-Week first draft blast, and may have heard of the Book in a Year challenge at eHarlequin, or simply the One Page A Day method to getting a book written in 365.

How ’bout a book in seventy days? Doable? You betcha. Say you’re writing a 100,000 word single title. 70 days at 1500 words per day (approx 6 pages) is 98,000 words total. Say you’re writing a 60,000 word series romance. 70 days at 900 words per day (approx 4 pages) is 63,000 words total. Writing 4 – 6 pages every day for 70 days is a schedule anyone who calls themselves a pro can handle easily – even if it is hard work!

The challenge will start on 1st of August and will finish on the 9th of October.

What are the rules I hear you say? Well for them let's go back to Alison Kent's original blog post:

The rules are simple. You agree to write 4 – 6 pages a day (depending on the length of your book) every day between the dates listed above. If you need to take off a day, you make up the pages another. If you don’t like to write 7 days a week, too bad. This challenge lasts for only 10 weeks, and if you have to get up early on the weekends to get the pages done, you do it.

You don’t have to have a blog to participate, but we do want you to sign up below so everyone involved can get to know one another. And if you do have a blog, you can post the information there. Going public with your commitment is about owning it. As far as reporting your progress, you’ll come back here each Wednesday  Monday and Sunday  Friday and post your word count for the week. And those of us sponsoring the challenge, will be dropping by your blog (if you have one) and egging you on!

So you want to take part? Well that's simple for now just reply with the following information:

1) Book Title (s)
2) Hero Name / Occupation
3) Heroine Name / Occupation
4) Setting
5) Length

Don't have a book you want to write but a number of stories to get done then just say so! In the first Seventy Days of Sweat I danced between different stories and successfully completed them all.

So for me my Seventy Days  of Sweat Challenge is going to start with the following:

1) Book Title - Winter Memories
2) Hero Name: Ben / Occupation
3) Heroine Name: Katie
4) Setting: A cabin up in the mountains
5) Length: 25,000 words

Once this one is done I will then be working on a summer story and a steampunk novel. What are you going to do?