The Go Teen Writers third 100 for 100 Challenge

by Stephanie Morrill

Stephanie writes young adult contemporary novels and is the creator of GoTeenWriters.com. Her novels include The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series (Revell) and The Revised Life of Ellie Sweet (Playlist). You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and check out samples of her work on her author website.


Starting next Friday, Go Teen Writers will host its third 100 words for 100 days challenge. This is one of my absolute favorite things we do here on the blog because in one sense it's a very doable challenge. 100 words normally takes no more than 10 minutes to write. But doing those daily words can make a big difference to not just your word count, but also your attitude toward your story and your writing. And if you invest those few minutes each day, at the end of the 100 days, you walk away with at least 10,000 words added to your manuscript.

I said in a blog post last week that dream chasing means doing, and that's what the 100 for 100 challenge is - doing. Chasing. Respecting your dream of writing a novel.

If you're new to our 100 word challenges, here's how they work:

1. You sign up on the form below saying, "Yes, I want to write 100 words for the next 100 days." (Even if you think you want to partake in the challenge, go ahead and sign up because once the deadline has passed, you no longer can, and you can back out if you need to.)
2. Beginning on Friday, August 23rd, you write 100 words on the project of your choice. It doesn't have to be novel - it can be a short story, a book of poems, a memoir. It can be a new project or a work in progress. Because the goal of the 100 for 100 challenge is to make progress on one manuscript, you're only able to count words for one project during the 100 days. With a couple exceptions:
1. If you're participating in National Novel Writing Month, you're welcome to put aside your 100 for 100 book, and begin counting your Nano novel toward your 100 for 100 challenge.
2. If you finish the book you were working on for the 100 for 100 challenge, you can continue with the challenge with a new project.
3. You write 100 words a day everyday until November 30th. You are allowed one "grace day" per week (sometimes life happens, plus many people take a day off a week for religious reasons and we want to respect that) and one "grace week" per contest. So if one week you only write 300 words, you just count up what you have, and press on.
4. You can write more than 100 words each day if you like. Most people find they do. But you can't write 700 words on Monday and nothing the rest of the week and still participate in the challenge. The idea is to develop a writing discipline. So some days you might write 1,000 words and others you might barely get in your 100.

***A change from previous contests***: Instead of tracking your word count on a massive spreadsheet, you will instead be tracking your word count on your own (I'll provide a tool to help with that) and reporting it to me at the end.

It's always fun to see which age group writes the most. We always announce who completed the challenge, who wrote the most words overall, and who wrote the most in each age group. We also have prizes that we give away at the end (books and critiques and other great writer things) that anyone who completes the challenge is eligible to win.

In short - it's a good time! You have a week to decide if you're in and to get signed up. No exceptions!