On the 1st January I started working with The Writers Book Of Days by Judy Reeves

The object of my challenge was to use the daily prompts to inspire a short story a day, but, to also make me write every day. It’s so easy to say you’re too busy or not in the mood….but you can always find 15 minutes 😉

Progress:

January – I did pretty well in January. I managed to do every prompt (ok sometimes if I wasn’t feeling inspired I did 2 in one day lol) most of which were stand alone short stories. There were a few prompts that I just didn’t gel with so I decided not to be so hard on myself and just wrote “scenes” for those difficult ones. They can be turned into a short story at a later date if I want to 😉

February – A much more productive month. I kept up with my prompts, didn’t seem to get as behind as I did in January. Perhaps I’m getting into the swing of it lol. I managed to turn 4 of the short stories into pieces suitable to enter into competitions (and sent them off….GO ME!) so I’m pleased with that 🙂

March – A very up and down month to be honest. It’s funny how some prompts inspire me to write pages and pages, others, I’m lucky if I can get one side of a page in my notebook written lol. I’m still enjoying it, still keeping on top of it, but I’ve fallen way behind with copying the stories onto my Netbook. That’s what I need to do to edit them and turn them into completed stories. I’m finding that I’m coming away from dark stuff and heading down the romance route lol

April – Was touch and go I have to say 😦 Probably because of the A-Z Challenge, where I wrote 26 days worth of characterisations. I think I was mentally exhausted! So, although I managed to keep up with the prompts, I think the quality definitely went down hill lol.

May Was a slightly better month. I started working with more than 1 notebook so I now have a designated book just for prompts. Sometimes I fall behind by a couple of days, but I’m not so anal about it, and don’t worry too much. I know at some stage I’ll catch up 🙂

June A bit touch and go this month as I went to Jersey for a week. But I did manage to keep on top of them, and enjoyed writing, sitting on my balcony, looking out to sea…BLISS! 🙂

July I got a bit behind this month. I went to The Writers Holiday at Caerleon and ended up getting a few days behind. Then, when I returned home with an infection, I really didn’t feel like writing 😦 So I’ll be starting August 4 days behind…. I did, however, try to use the prompts for scenes to my pocket novel and to practice romance writing.

August I attended The Writers Summer School at Swanwick this month, and with lovely warm weather and a lake to sit by I managed to keep up with the daily prompts. I kind of went through a turning point. I was getting a bit fed up with the prompts to be honest, tired I guess. But then, this month I started becoming a bit more passionate about them again 🙂

September Was a funny month. I got behind a couple of times, but only by about 3 days each time. I’ve used a few of the prompts for my Mills & Boon novel, which has been great fun, but, I’m finding it hard to focus. Nothing to do with lack of time, just that I have so many other things I want to do lol. There just aren’t enough hours in the day lol. But, now that the calendars turned to October I can see the end in sight! 🙂

October Was probably my best month. I took myself out to coffee shops quite a bit which always helps. Yeah, a good month 🙂

November Nano month *slump* I was wondering how the hell I was going to keep up with it all. Write a 50,000 word novel AND do a prompt a day. It was hard work until I hit 20,000 words on Nano and my story was finished *panic* But rather than give up there and then I decided to use the prompts for short stories and loved it 🙂 I ended up with 55,000 Official Nano words, but that didn’t include 10 days of prompts I did as well, so gawd only knows what my word count for the month actually was 😉 Because of Nano I was doing the prompts on the laptop rather than handwriting them….hmmmmm, will need to think whether I should continue with that, I quite enjoyed it!

December Well, I did it! I think it got easier this month because I was relishing it more, knowing that I was nearing the end 😉

So pleased with myself! A whole year of writing prompts!

HUGE thanks to Judy Reeves for making it possible!