Well… I’m off to a good start on my Q4 Challenge.

As I wrote yesterday, the goal of the challenge is to write 25,000 words each week for the remaining eleven weeks of the year. This translates to (roughly) 3,572 words per day.

As of 4:58pm, I am 329 words over my daily quota.

Here’s a screenshot of my writing log:

But success on Day One is… admittedly… very easy. The key is to maintain this for the next 76 days.

And I find myself thinking about modifying the challenge.

Not reducing the word count. Oh, no… not at all. I’m thinking of changing the target to “write for three hours each day.”

As you can see from the screenshot, I averaged 1,696.09 words per hour today. That was a very easy pace, and I don’t feel I strained my wrists or anything else maintaining it. Which is why I’m tempted to change the success conditions from 25,000 words per week to 21 hours of writing per week (i.e. 3 hours per day).

The more I turn this over in my head, though, I think it might be wise to keep things as they are. 3,572 words per day is easy for me. Consistency is my problem.

So, yes… I think I’ll keep the challenge as is–25,000 words per week–and consider upping the word count or changing the success conditions of the next challenge.

I have to admit there’s a little voice at the back of my mind that is grinning like a fool over the idea of training myself to write every day. If I am correct that today’s words per hour is easy for me to maintain across the long-term, then doing that for just six hours a day means I’d write 8,480.43 words per day, which is only 530 words shy of what I need to write to achieve that dream/wish/desire of writing 1,000 titles across my professional lifetime.

Maybe that dream/wish/desire isn’t so far-fetched after all…

I hope Sunday has treated or is treating you well, and I’ll be back tomorrow with another update.

Be safe out there.