It’s that time of year! Summer break is coming (or is already upon us!) and that means it’s time for another 100-for-100 writing challenge! If youā€™ve been around Go Teen Writers for very long, you know this is a writing challenge we host most summers, and itā€™s by far the most popular event we do.

What is the 100-for-100? The challenge is to write (at least) 100 words a day, every day, for 100 days.

100 words is about a paragraph. You can likely do it in 10 minutes or less. While it might seem like just a drop in the bucket, all those drops add up to 10,000 words in your manuscript by the end of the 100 days. And thatā€™s if you do the bare minimum! Not bad, right?

This writing challenge is open to writers of all ages! Hereā€™s how the challenge works:

1. You sign up on the form at the end of this post. You must be signed up by noon central time on Monday, June 6th if you want to play along. Within 24 hours, you’ll receive an email from me welcoming you to the challenge. If you don’t receive that email within 24 hours, please let me know! Stephanie(at)GoTeenWriters.com.

2. Beginning on Monday, June 6th you write 100 words on the project of your choice. You must pick one project to work on for the 100-for-100 challenge. Only words for that that project count toward your daily words. Here are the exceptions:

  • If you finish your project. Hooray for finishing projects! If this happens, just pick something else to work on.
  • If you and your project part ways. This happened to me one year. The 100-for-100 coincided with a writers conference, and I pitched my 100-for-100 book to an editor at the conference. She told me they already had a book in the pipeline that was basically the same concept. And that was probably the last time I ever opened that manuscript file. Sometimes things happen and we lose interest for good reasons.

3. You write 100 words a day everyday until Tuesday, September 13th, and you keep track of it. At the end of the challenge, youā€™ll send me your tracking sheet. Hereā€™s a link to one weā€™ve made, but you donā€™t have to use this one. (This link will give you access to view it but not make changes. You can print it out, download it, or save a copy to your own Google Drive. If youā€™re having trouble with it, let me know.) Somehow, though, you need to keep track of how many words youā€™ve written so that I can see. A few notes about your words:

  • You are allowed one ā€œgrace dayā€ 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 ā€œgrace weekā€ per contest. So if one week you only write 300 words, you just count up what you have, and press on.
  • You can write more than 100 words each day if you like. Most people find they do. But you canā€™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.
  • Yes, you can write by hand. Just add the words up as best you can. With my handwriting, I usually have 10 words per line so I just go with that. We all have way more important things to do with our lives than count individual words in a notebook.

4. When the challenge is over, you send me your form. Then two things will happen:

  • You get my admiration and respect. I have actually never made it all the way to the end. I’m giving it another go this year.
  • We post your name on a list on the website as someone who totally rocks.

Some helpful tips:

Lydia Howe is a published author and community member who faithfully did the challenge for at least 6 years. YES, SIX YEARS. She wrote a post for us several years ago with tips for writing everyday thatā€™s totally worth checking out!

We will be using the hashtag #GTW100for100 on social media. Jill, Shan, and I are most active on Instagram, and you can follow the Go Teen Writers account here.

That is a great chance to rack up words and connect with fellow writers this summer! We hope youā€™ll join us!

Questions? Drop them in the comment section below.