Five Reasons You Should Write 100 Words Every Day

Beginning on Monday (the 15th), Go Teen Writers will be holding their fourth 100 words for 100 days challenge! Next to NaNoWriMo, the 100-4-100 challenge rates as my favorite one of the year. It’s simple; 100 words generally takes about 10 minutes to write. And with those 100 words, times 100 days, you end up with about 10,000 words in the story you’re writing!

I joined their second 100-4-100 challenge, back in 2012 (remind me if that’s the wrong year). That year, I did it for a couple weeks and flunked. Then, last year, I joined again, and that time succeeded—in total, for those 100 days, I had about 4 days off total that I didn’t write.

So while it does take a little time, if you’re a writer who would benefit from any of the following things, I think you ought to join as well.

• Fresh inspiration, which generally only comes for me only after I’ve been writing for a little while (not always, but most of the time). Something about writing juices getting going again….
• The knowledge that there are others who are doing it—and succeeding at it, and you can too—an encouragement when it seems like the only progress you’re making is backwards.
• Having the sheer thrill of feeling a story grow through your fingertips, and knowing that you are an author, after days or weeks or however long it’s been since you last wrote anything.
• Realizing that it is possible to get closer to the end of your story—even if the end seems a long way away, and it’s been sitting in basically the same state for a long while.
• Getting into a daily habit of devoting 10 minutes—or however long it is for you—to honing the craft you love working on, something that is invaluable to writers.

That’s just a few off the top of my head right now. I know there are other reasons as well. But, this is my bottom line: If you’re a writer, and you can make 10—or 20—extra minutes in your day, I think you should join the challenge.

Signing up ends Sunday night—don’t put it off until too late! Otherwise, you’ll have to wait a whole year!

(There are rules to the challenge—visit their page to find out about them.)

~Esther