Today is the first day of the Blog Your Book in 30 Days 2016 challenge! We have our own badge, if you'd like to use it.
First, for those of you who are new, here's a bit of information about the challenge (which you can also find by clicking on some of the links at the top of the page).
About the challenge:
Blog Your Book in 30 Days is a challenge to write the first draft of your book by posting one chapter a day for an entire month. During the month of the challenge, helpful blog posts will be shared on the website.
The challenge is here to help you write the book you have always wanted to write but have never written. Whether you want to write a memoir, a fiction novel, a comic book, a children's chapter book or middle grade novel or a non-fiction book, this challenge is going to help you get it done.
Every day, you are going to do any research that is needed for the day's writing and your are going to post a blog post of one chapter of your book. By the end of the month, you should have 30 chapters and a completed first draft.
This way of writing your books works best if you are planning to self-publish your book, but there are some instances where blogs have garnered the attention of agents and publishers and resulted in book deals. Those instances are the exception though, not the rule.
But the rules are much more flexible than they may seem by reading the "about" section, so here are the rules (which can also be found by clicking on one of the links at the top of the page).
The rules of the challenge:
You have from the first of the month until the 30th of the month to complete the first draft of your book. No starting early, unless it is only research and outline you are working on beforehand.
On the 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th and 30th of the month, you will do a quick comment on that day's blog post posted on this blog about that week stating how the week has gone for you and anything you have learned or achieved from the challenge that week. Your comment might be quoted in the Blog Your Book in 30 Days book when it comes out or later in the blog itself and, by commenting, you are giving permission for your quote to be used. (You will be named with the quote.)
Each day, you are to write one chapter and then copy and paste it into your day's blog post. By the end of the challenge, you should have a final word count. On the 30th, your comment will include your final word count and whether or not you have finished your first draft. Everyone who completes their first draft will be entered into a prize drawing. (The prize this year is a collection of different, mostly home-made things, and the items will be pictured on the blog as we go through the challenge, one thing at a time.) Every time you leave a comment on (one comment per post) a blog post, you will earn one more entry into the drawing. Your comments on the 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th and 30th will earn you two entries into the drawing, and my favourite comment from each of those five days will earn an extra entry.
This challenge is self-driven and monitored. It is a way to keep yourself accountable as you write.
There are some optional ways of following this challenge for those who plan on having their books published traditionally rather than self-published.
1. Write your one chapter every day, but only post on your blog about the writing, such as how much you wrote, what part of the story you were working on, what was easy about it, what was difficult about it, whether it stayed on plan or strayed from the original plot idea, etc. (Have you made a book cover for your book, even just a working cover? Share that too!)
2. Write your one chapter every day, but only post a small (one paragraph) excerpt from that day's writing as your blog post for the day.
3. Blog your book as per the original plan, but leave out important chapters, which will only be seen in the finished product. (This is mostly a good idea for those who plan on self-publishing, but not so much if you plan on submitting your book elsewhere. But it's still an option if you are certain you can build up a large following for your book as a publisher will take that into account.)
4. Use this challenge to edit a previously written book and make notes on the blog about the editing process as you work through the different issues in your book.
The main point of this challenge is to get your book written and to build up a following for it before it comes out.
Good luck!
Go ahead and grab a badge from below:
The first time I ran this challenge, I wrote a daily blog post on different topics having to do with writing. Feel free to read through previous posts. My posts might not be as informative during this challenge in 2017, but I intend to make sure you will have at least one informative post to learn from each week.
