500 words

500 words per day.

What the heck am I even thinking?  Seriously.

500 words per day averages out like this... on a regular Word document, with margins at default settings, its a Times New Roman font, 12pt, single spaced and taking up 3/4s of a page.

That's doable, right?  But every day?

I mean, there's no way I can do that.

No way. 

Got too much other junk going on.

Where did this come from?   There's this dude named Jeff Goins... I only heard of him recently, he's written a few books, most notably one called "The In-Between".  "The In-Between" what?  I have no idea, I haven't read it.  Its on my list for 2014... but anyway, to the point, he's got this website where he challenges people to be better writers.  (he also wrote "Wrecked", which you can get for free on your B&N Nook by clicking here)

So, yesterday, on Facebook, I stumbled across this 500 word challenge.  Its a challenge to write 500 words per day, and as he puts it:

• Write 500 words per day, every day for 31 days during the month of January.
• You can write more if you want, but 500 words 1is the minimum.

(do those words count?  I mean, I typed them, but I didn't write them write them... hmm)

(do the words that asking if those words count, count?)

I did try this twice before... the first was my Summer of Blogging a few years ago, which was pretty successful... I challenged myself to write 90 times in 90 days over the course of Summer 2011... I think I ended up about 70 or 75 times over 90 days, which is not bad.

I tried something a year or so after, called "The July 31", which I was going to write something every day for the 31 days of that July.  That didn't last long.

So, I don't expect I'll get far in writing 500 words per day in January.  I certainly won't be posting every day, because those rare occasions that I post something awesome, I don't want it to get lost amongst the regular stuff...

But what if... what if I could write 500 words per day?  That's essentially 15,500 words for the whole month... maybe I don't do 500 words per day... but what if a blog post was 1000 words?  Or, what if I wrote 500 words per day, taking a few days to do a blog post, then posted it? 

Or maybe I just set a one-month goal of 15,500 words... or round up to 16,000... and then just kept track of what I had written and what was left to go?

Let's get real... there's no way I could write 500 words per day. I'll fail miserably... but...

...but...

...if I don't try, I fail already.

Don't you hate those sayings?  I mean, you see them all the time, those old adages that are so cliché, that you just frown when you hear, because you think "really?  who says that anymore?" but what burns you is that they are actually true... just because they are often said doesn't make them not true.

Okay, okay... fine.  We'll do it.  I mean, I don't know why I'll try, because I'd have to start today and I couldn't even toss out 500 words if I tried and...

...wait...

(counting... 1.. 2... 3...)

(...56... 57... 58... 59...)

(...203 ... 204... 205... 206.. 207...  does anyone else move their pointer finger in the direction of what they are counting as they count, even though its impossible to actually use your finger to count words because of the angle you have to use...?)

(..599...600... 601...)

601?  Really?  Well... that wasn't that hard... hmm...

500 words per day... what am I thinking?  I'm thinking I'm going to write 20,000 words in January, somehow, someway. 

(tomorrow... 2014 gets going as I post my Great 48... forty eight things to accomplish in 2014)

(634 words down... 19,366 to go for 20K in January)