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 youāve been around Go Teen Writers for very long, you know this is a writing challenge we host most summers, and itās 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 thatās if you do the bare minimum! Not bad, right?
This writing challenge is open to writers of all ages! Hereās 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, youāll send me your tracking sheet. Hereās a link to one weāve made, but you donāt 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 youāre having trouble with it, let me know.) Somehow, though, you need to keep track of how many words youāve written so that I can see. A few notes about your words:
- You are allowed one āgrace 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 āgrace 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 canāt 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 thatās 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 youāll join us!
Questions? Drop them in the comment section below.
Ahh! I’m super excited to do this, this year. ?
Can’t wait!!
So glad you’re joining us!
I’m so excited! I’ve been following you guys for awhile, and have been looking forward to the challenge since I was reading through the archives and saw the post about last year. I do have a question. Does prewriting, like outlining and character development count?
Great question! Yes, it does!
Thank you! Iām so excited!
Does editing count?
We prefer it to not be a mix of drafting 100 words and editing, but if you’re in the editing stage of your project, we say 15 minutes of editing is the equivalent of drafting 100 words.
Yay!!! I’m super excited for this challenge to begin!!!!? I can’t wait to get working on my novel!!
Yay!
Can’t wait to give this another go this year! Thanks for hosting this challenge!!!
Absolutely!
I can’t wait for the challenge to start! This will be my third year doing the 100-for-100, and each year has been so helpful with my writing!
Love hearing that, Riya!
Ah, can’t wait to be doing this again! It’s one of my favorite challenges to participate in!
It’s a fun one! I’m so glad you’re joining us.
I didn’t commit to the challenge last year and I regretted it. It’s a great small motivation that can often lead to bigger things! Thanks for continuing again this year!
Happy to have you!
It’s so awesome you guys put this on every year! I don’t think I’ll be joining this year, unfortunately, because I actually just finished my very first-ever complete first draft this evening! I’ll be taking the 6 weeks off like you recommend, Ms. Stephanie! During that time though, I plan on brainstorming other ideas, and reading Edit Your Novel (I just ordered it!)
I’m both happy and sad to finish my first draft. There’s something about getting to the end that breaks me a bit. At least I know though, that there’s still a lot of work to be done on it!!! It’s a little overwhelming. ? (my draft is ROUGH!)
Riley, CONGRATULATIONS!!!! That’s amazing. You won’t regret the time away! I hope Edit Your Novel is a helpful resource for you!
Congratulations on finishing your first draft, Riley!!!!!!!!!?
YO CONGRATULATIONS!!! that’s huge!
I’ve fallen off the wagon the past two summers, but I’m going to give it another go! Regardless, it’ll be an excellent incentive for me to write this summer! So glad you guys host this!! So excited!
During the summer, I’m off the wagon more than I’m on, so no worries! Happy you’ll be joining us again!
I’m so excited to do this challenge! I’m just getting started on a first draft, so this will be exactly the motivation I need to really get some work done. I can’t wait!
What great timing!
I’m so excited for this!! I tried last year but didn’t make it (though it still really boosted me to write when I otherwise wouldn’t have!). I’m really hoping and determined to succeed this year though!!
I had a question about the “grace week”. Does this week have to be seven days in a row taken off, or can you take a day off here and there and have it add up to be a week? I was a little confused by that.
The original idea behind it was that if you have a family vacation or you’re at camp for a week or something, you can skip a whole week without having to drop out. We’re not super strict about how the grace week is used š
I just signed up myself and 3 teen and preteen kids!
Hooray!!!
*will rob your house* XD
Everything was still here when we got back š You’re an honorable group.
I’m so excited for this! I did it last year and was so, so grateful for the accountability it provided. I look forward to another great summer of consistent writing. Thanks so much for doing this!
Happy you’ll be joining us again!
I just signed up for the first time! I have to plot some before the 6th, but I’m going to try and do this thing. lol Thanks for providing this opportunity!
Yay!
i feel like iām not going to make it but why not try i suppose
You might surprise yourself! And if it helps you write more than you would have otherwise, that’s success!
I’m definitely going to sign up this year. It will be some good practice for choosing a project and sticking with it. I did it last year, and while I got lost after a while and just started writing weird scenes with my characters doing random things they probably will never do in the actual story, it was really helpful to have to stick with one project instead of hopping around to whatever seems interesting. Thanks for hosting this!