No-Word-Count November is complete! Thank you to everyone who joined or followed along this month. This final Write by Candelight replay is available for free to all subscribers. If you are in need of a little extra motivation and accountability for your next writing session, watch the replay for timed sprints and encouragement.
🌟 Recap & Highlights
We began the session with prayer, then I opened by sharing our focus word for the week—anxious. We can often feel anxious or worried about many things when it comes to our writing, but we can combat those fears and doubts with prayer and God’s Word.
From there, we had three timed writing sprints. In between sprints, I talked about my favorite Christmas reads, and I explained how the internal villains for our characters often come in the form of fear, doubt, or anxiety. At the end of our time together, I announced the winner of November’s candle giveaway (Crystal Grant), and I revealed my final word count for November.
✍️ My No-Word-Count November Progress
It had been so long since I looked at my word count in Scrivener, I had nearly forgotten how to find it. After some searching and math, Scrivener determined I had added 777 words in November . . .
But that couldn’t be right, could it?
Even with how slow a writer I am (and I am a slow writer), I attended a 3-day writing retreat in November, during which time I drafted all of Chapter 2 (3,700 words alone). I had also revised that chapter, and I revised and added content to the Prologue and Chapter 1. Something was off, and I was going to find out what it was.
So after our session, I checked my Scrivener settings. Sure enough, the word count and writing history did not include all of the documents (chapters) in my manuscript. If you’re unfamiliar with Scrivener, it’s a great tool, and there are so many ways to organize your chapters, notes, outlines, character profiles, etc. But it’s also easy for a setting to be off, and when I checked the “compile” settings, I discovered not every document (chapter) in my manuscript was selected.
Suffice it to say, I was relieved to discover that, between drafting and revisions, I had added a total of 6,018 words to my story in November! I’m calling that a win for me. It may not be 50,000, but choosing my story every day in some way or another, regardless of word count, was truly motivating and freeing after a year under pressure of deadlines and a book launch. It was difficult not to peek for 30 days, but I also found that I felt more productive and motivated during each writing session. I might start putting this no-word-count thing into practice more often. At least until I’m close to a deadline again.
📁 Presentation Download
Again, even if you couldn’t attend live, the replay may still be valuable to you if you’re struggling to choose your story every day or find motivation to sit down and write.
The link to the PDF presentation is below.
Thank you for being a Substack subscriber. Your support blesses me greatly, and I hope this presentation and replay bless you as you write.
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