Chuck Wendig: Terribleminds

How To Push Past The Bullshit And Write That Goddamn Novel: A Very Simple No-Fuckery Writing Plan To Get Shit Done

Life will never be kind to the writer. Particularly those who stay at home. You go to a full-time job outside the house, everyone gives you a wide berth to let you do what you need to do. Stay at home to write a book and everybody interrupts you like all you’re doing is watching a Teen Mom marathon on MTV while chowing down on pizza-flavored Combos and Haagen-Daaz.

Life intrudes upon you. It kicks down the door and stomps all over a writer’s practical aspirations to write. Kids. Dogs. A full-time job. A part-time job. Cleaning. Cooking. Pubic grooming. Xenomorph invasion. Hallucinations. Masturbation. LIQUOR AND MONKEY WRESTLING.

As your shoulders bear the burden of carrying the multiple shit-sacks of life’s daily ordure output, it gets easier and easier to push writing aside: “I’ll do that tomorrow,” you say, and next thing you know you’re in diapers once more, this time at an old folks’ home gumming chocolate pudding topped with a skin so thick you need scissors to cut it. Procrastination is the affirmation of an unpleasant and unwelcome but all-too-easy status quo. You merely need to do nothing and yet at the same time feel productive because you’ve promised no really I’ll pinky swear to put down some words tomorrow. You know what I want to say to that?

Tomorrow can guzzle a bucket of vulture barf.

Yesterday’s gone the way of the dodo. You have one day, and it is today.

Your promises are as hollow as a cheap-ass dollar-store chocolate Easter Bunny.

I’m going to give you literally no excuse at all to write and finish that novel. You know the one. The one that lives in your head and your heart but not on the page. The one you always say, “I’m going to write that book someday.” The one you talk about. But not the one you write. The one that makes you blah blah blah “aspiring” rather than the “real deal.” I’m going to give you a prescription for a writing plan that is simple, straightforward, and contains zero heinous fuckery. It’s so easy, a determined ten-year-old could do it. You will have no excuse. None. Zip.

Fuck-all.

Because if you come back to me and say, “I can’t do that,” you might as well have told me, “I can’t pick myself up out of this pile of mule poop I accidentally rolled in. I’m literally just bound to lay here in this once-warm now-cold heap of mule turds. Forever. Until I die. I have no self-capability and I am less motivated than your average sea cucumber. Please kick dirt on me, and if the word writer ever comes out of my mouth again, just slap my face.”

Further, if someone tells you they aren’t able to write a novel — “I don’t have time! My life is too busy!” — just send them a link to this post with my blessing.

Ready? Here’s the rules:

The Big 350

You’re going to write and finish the first draft of a novel in one year’s time.

You are going to do this by writing five days out of the week, or 260 days out of the year.

You are going to write 350 words on each of those 260 days.

That means, at the end of one year, you will have written 91,000 words.

More than enough for an average novel length.

To be clear, 350 words? Not a lot. At this point in your reading, this post is already 500 words long. You can sneeze 350 words. It’s like a word appetizer every day. Some days it’ll take you 15 minutes, other days two hours — but you’re going to commit to those 350 words every day, whether you type them out, or scrawl them in a notebook, or chisel them into the wall of your prison cell. You will carve these words out of the time you are given.

You get 24 hours a day. As do I. As do we all.

Grab a little time to write a little bit every day.

The Goal

The goal is not to write a masterpiece. It’s not to sprint. This ain’t NaNoWriMo. The goal is to finish a novel despite a life that seems hell-bent to let you do no such thing. It is you snatching snippets of word count from the air and smooshing them together until they form a cohesive (if not coherent) whole. It assumes a “slow and steady wins the race” approach to this book.

A finished first draft. That is the brass ring, the crown jewels, the Cup of the Dead Hippie God.

The Other Rules

No other rules exist. Next question.

Things To Consider

Wanna do an outline? Great, go for it. Edit as you go or all in one lump? I don’t give a monkey’s poop-caked paw how you approach it. Do as you like. Just hit your target of 350 words per day.

Let me say that again: Just hit your target. Don’t turn off your targeting computer. Don’t listen to that weird old man. Use your targeting computer, Luke. The Force is some flimsy hoo-haw made by a bunch of loveless space cenobites. No, not those cenobites, goddamnit you’re confusing your movies. Stop fiddling with that ornate-looking puzzle box. CRIMINY.

Wrote more than your allotted and expected count in one day? Fuck yeah. High-five. Fist-bump. Slap-and-tickle. Give unto yourself the pleasures of the flesh and celebrate that you’re this much closer to the end goal. Didn’t write today? Well, goddamnit. Fine. Guess what? It’s only 350 words. Cram it into tomorrow’s word-hole. That’s still only 700 words. It’s not even a 1000 words. Some writers write that much before they wake up in the morning.

Make a spreadsheet if you have to. Track your 350 words per day (you’ll probably end up writing more than that consistently and hitting your tally quicker, particularly with a spreadsheet to remind you — you will discover it’s actually hard to stop at 350 words).

The word count is small enough and steady enough where you can comfortably fuck doubt right in the ear. You’re creeping through the draft like a burglar. One step at a time. Relax. Breathe. Like that one fish says to that other fish in the movie about all the fucking fish: Just keep swimming. Or for a differnt metaphor, you know how you eat an elephant? ONE BITE AT A TIME.

Contains Zero Fuckery

This is easy! You can do this! You can do better than this! This is a plan on par with, “Do one push-up every day.” This is, “Don’t pee on the salad bar.” This is a bare minimum, common denominator, common sense, zero fuckery writing plan. You can’t do this, you don’t want to be a writer. You don’t get to be a writer. Not least of all because you can’t carve just a little bit of fat from your day to sizzle up 350 words in your story-skillet.

Lend this plan a little bit of your time.

Give this plan a little bit of your effort.

And in one year’s time, you will have a novel.

It won’t be a masterpiece.

It will need editing.

But it’ll be a first draft of something real.

Something many so-called “writers” never achieve.

One year.

Weekends off.

Just 350 words for 260 days.

Shut up and write.

(EDIT: Did a graphic for this:)

(Feel free to share!)

terribleminds

335 responses to “How To Push Past The Bullshit And Write That Goddamn Novel: A Very Simple No-Fuckery Writing Plan To Get Shit Done”

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  1. […] Chuck Wendig’s Zero Fuckery 350 Words a Day Writing Plan continues to have a huge impact on my life. Today is day 4 of my following this new plan. The goal is to write 350 words, five days a week. Each day this week, I have exceeded my goal. I wrote 1,402 words today, bringing my total thus far this week up to 3,410 words of a 6,6512 short story. Word count goal for this story is between 6K and 10K words. At this rate, the word count will reach 7K, which seems about right. […]

    Reply

  8. Thanks for your inspiring post … and specially for the oh so slight dig at Nanowrimo, I found that bit particularly apt. Nano is a good exercise but there is something sinister about it in my opinion. I don’t believe that the practice of bashing out a few thousand words every day and getting a load of stuff down in a month is necessarily the right way to go about writing a novel – most times you just end up with a load of gibberish. Word count (in my experience) does not a good book make. Quality not Quantity is what counts. Slow and steady is the way to go, I totally agree with that. The message here is plain and simple and it DOES WORK. Kick procrastination in the butt, write your well thought out 350 words a day and feel bloody proud of yourself. .

    Reply

  10. This is really great! and such good timing with the beast that is NaNoWriMo just around the corner.

    My writing group threw some perspective at me the other day, that if you write 1K a day for a year, you’ll have written 365,000 words which equates to 3-5 full novels. (editing/plotting does not count toward the 1K/day)

    So…we started a 1K A Day Challenge this last wednesday that will last. The only rule is the words have to be all new, no editing counted, and you do it for as long as you can from the day you start (a full year is the ultimate goal.)

    Track your progress with the #1KaDayChallenge on twitter and instagram, if you want to join in.

    Reply

  12. I wrote my first novel in six months. I wrote four days a week, dedicated myself to 1,000 words a day. And goddamnit, I finished. It needs a shit-ton of work, but that first draft if fucking done! Your recommended goal would have made it a lot easier (350 at five days a week? No problem!) , but I’m glad I stuck to my own goal just to get say I did it.

    Reply

  15. […] Of course, for all my insistence on patience and aversion to strict routines, I do love a plan to get a writing project started. And I do need to get started — all summer, I’ve been trying to get going on my next novel, and while I work on it from time to time, other projects keep stepping in and taking over my writing time. Which is why I enjoyed the Terrible Minds post about “How to Push Past the Bullshit and Write That Goddamn Novel.” […]

    Reply

  16. I love it, you’re writing is excellent, dark, and witty. The plan is great, but it’s not really my problem, I have every bit of the motivation it takes to write, I mean to say I write daily. The problem is I just can’t tell a good story, it’s like my imagination is as dry as 20 year old nailed 2×4. I will admit… I don’t take time to plan a novel, I am ridiculously quick to just jump in to waters I know nothing about. Does anyone have any tips? Is there even such thing as a writer who can’t tell a story?

    Reply

    • Hi Nico, I’m no expert but for what it’s worth, personally for myself the first thing I need is some inspiration. A topic, or a unique character, or a scene that sticks with me and is really powerful.
      If I think a lot on that and other thoughts begin to grow from that inspiration, there is your kernel, there is the seed that grows your story. Plan or not plan, doesn’t matter too much. Either write it in order or not … a random bunch of scenes can be slotted into a logical order within the story later on, and if they don’t fit, you cut them out.
      If you find you wake in the wee small hours of the morning with a brilliant idea, turn your light on and jot that idea down or it will be gone by the morning.
      Hope these suggestions are of some help to you.

      Reply

  17. Needed this. Didn’t feel like writing today. Currently, I am on 39, 290 words in my novel. Today is the day I slap a 1000 words on and reach the bare-minimum novel length. The story won’t be done, but I just know that having a novel-length work will inspire me to finish. With a bang. No, with a BANG. Heck yeah!

    Reply

  28. This is bullshit, hell, I got so motivated that I finished a whole damn novel in 3 weeks to a month and now I’m editing it to get sent off. Who needs 250 when you have work ethic. I’m working on two books at the same time and one of them should he ready for publishing towards the beginning of 2015.

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  35. I used to keep a piece of paper taped to the wall and kept track of my daily wordcount that way, but then I found this completely free site that allows you to make goals and keep track of your progress. It lets you enter how much you’ve written on a particular day and adjusts how much (or little) you have to write on all the rest of the days before the deadline you set. 😀 http://writetrack.davidsgale.com/pls/apex/f?p=228:101:0:LOGOUT

    Reply

  39. […] Be proud of the words you write, not the words you don’t or haven’t. If you write 100 words today, cool. If you write 1000 or 5000 or a whole 10k, fuck yeah. Jump up and high-five yourself. Yes, to be a writer, you have to write. But you also have to set realistic goals and be excited by whatever progress you make, big or small. Sure, you can push yourself — as long as you don’t break yourself (translation: check yourself, but don’t wreck yourself). Sometimes, writing is a game of inches. Sometimes it’s a act of great, clumsy leaps. You gotta take pride in the small steps as much as in the big jumps. (Bonus: my 350-words-a-day no-fuckery writing plan.) […]

    Reply

  41. I remember now. This is how I originally came to your blog. This post. Don’t remember what I was looking for or if someone just linked me, but this was it.
    Fan for life.

    Noodle on that.

    Reply

  44. I’m so into this plan it’s not even remotely funny. I’m on day nine so far. Haven’t missed a day yet. Every day I feel a bit more excited than I did the day before.

    Daily total: 833
    Accumulated total: 6,085
    Average daily word count: 676
    Progress toward target: 6.68681318681319%
    Target rate: 193.1428571428571%

    If I can keep up this average daily word count, the 91,000 word target will be reached on day 135. Not bad for a 260 day plan.

    Reply

  47. I keep this tab open at all times so that it’s there to stare me down and shame me into closing my browser when I’m supposed to be writing. This plan has done wonders for me – historically, 350 words has literally taken me days. I’d fiddle with phrasing until it was *just right* but then whoops it was past midnight and I’d done literally nothing except decide that yes, my original word choice was, in fact, superior to a synonym.

    But now that I’ve got a word count goal I need to punch in the face, I’m pushing on through, and I’ve found that hey, what I slap down without obsessive, nail-biting editing doesn’t actually completely suck. Yesterday, I knocked out my 350 in 20 minutes, and liked what I saw. I’ve never been prouder.

    So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for such an engaging, wise, and deeply motivational post. It’s given me the push I needed.

    Reply

  50. In 2014, I used Chuck’s advice and consistently tracked my word count for my Long-Suffering Manuscript. However, I soon started approaching writing more from a “Need to finish X amount of words today!” angle instead of enjoying the act of writing. Simply put, writing soon transformed from a source of fun and fulfilment to an aneurysm-provoking chore.

    I also struggle with writing perfectionism (who doesn’t?), so even though I was hitting the required daily quota, my mind was quietly breaking down. During this time, I finished 440,000 words and seven drafts, but scrapped all of them because something just didn’t feel right. The writing was mechanical. I was focused too much on productivity, instead of letting my characters drive the story.

    So for 2015 and beyond, I switched gears and devised a new way of getting myself into the writing zone whenever I’m stuck while writing a new draft. I wrote a blog post and made a video about my method, which might resonate with some of you: http://millieho.net/2015/06/03/3-challenges-writing-the-first-10000-words/

    Overall, the visualization trick worked the best. Having a strong image in your head, especially one that includes you actively getting past some obstacle, spurs me into action. All in all, great advice from Chuck. The only way we’re ever going to make it to the end (and be happy with the product at the end) is by giving ourselves permission to suck and to write through all the fear and doubt.

    Reply
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