My dear friend Michelle, who pops in on this blog sometimes, (Hi Michelle!), set me a challenge, to send her a set number of words of my current novel-in-progress. The idea was that the challenge would both inspire her with her own progress in a writing-related project, and to inspire me to get a move on in the writing of my novel.
So for all of January, every day, I am to send 500 words of my novel to Michelle for her to read, and send me back a brief word of encouragement. I don’t remember that being a part of the plan, it may be just Michelle treating me like a student of hers, and doing it to encourage me, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter about that, because the truth, having to send those words to Michelle has defenitely got the novel moving along more.
I definitely recommend other writers who have a project that is lacking in progress, may do well to find someone they like, who likes reading, and offering feedback or at least encouragement, to do the same. I merely copy and paste 500 words from my novel, in a linear fashion, unless I get it all mixed up and send something from earlier. I copy the words from my manuscript, then paste them in the body of an email, and send it off to Michelle, simple.
When I remember, I put *from here* in my manuscript just after the piece I last sent off, so I know where to copy the next 500 words from. And the really good thing, or things actually are, I will have 15,500 more words in my novel written, that may not have happened, and the best thing is once January is over, Michelle and I are going to get together, and look at what I have so far. How it’s going, whether anything needs fixing, and so on.
This is a good way to get help in writing a novel, I reckon, and I’m so glad Michelle suggested it! Writers need quiet times away from everyone, to get longer works written, but they need friends too, to keep them on track, to listen and to offer support!
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 