I've been putting off my week 3 update, hoping that if I waited a few more days I would have more words to show for myself—but alas 😂 Today is technically my day 29, so I really should be doing my week 4 update tomorrow, but my current wordcount is 11,596. Funny enough, I'm not disappointed in that number; as @Brindizi Hamblin so wisely said on my last update, that's 11,596 words that I didn't have before! In fact, until this challenge, I hadn't really written anything in months. I'm just finding that I can either be stressed about reaching 30k in thirty days or I can embrace the creativity when and how it strikes. For example, this last week in the spare time I had to write, I found I wanted to paint instead. While there's certainly something to be said for writing and just getting the words down even when you don't want to, I decided that rather than forcing myself to write, I'd let my brain be creative in the way it felt inspired to. On the bright side, I've only actually written 12 days this month, so 11,596 words total averages out to almost 1k a day. So I feel like 30k in thirty days is certainly realistic, just maybe not thirty CONSECUTIVE days 🙃 (for me at least right now . . . props to all of you who are in it!) I'm going to keep writing, but I won't post my week 4 update until I've reached 30k and can reflect on the whole experience. Good luck to you all!

At the end of week 3, I am at 10,891 words. Woof. I’m really falling behind the goal, despite my best efforts. I’ve had a serious block the last few days and it has really squashed my momentum. I’m trying to find ways to push through the block so I can increase my output again.

Hey all! For those of you who were at the Q&A on Thursday, it was killer (it should be uploaded to the Classroom soon)! Erin gave tons of incredible advice, especially for those working on the 30K in 30 Days challenge, and during the Q&A she promised to share the revision outline that she uses herself with us. It's attached here! Erin asked that we don't distribute it, but that hopefully we find it useful for our revisions.

Hey all, Veena here. I've been here awhile , lurking in the comments and just realized I never introduced myself. Or did I? (Typical 🙄). Am I shy or rude? Probably both(usually unintentionally), but more the former. I was born, raised and educated on the East Coast, so you can blame the sass on that. Hah. I now live in Montana. Went to my first Storycon this year and learned so much. Anyway, I'm an author with a fairly polished manuscript (to the best of my newb ability) at that fork in the road - should I keep querying in the hopes of trad pub or learn to put on yet another hat and self pub. 🤷🏽‍♀️ 80k SFF. a young protagonist in a story with adult themes. (where does such a book go on today's bookshelf?) Funny, emotionally driven, space-faring. Working logline: The story follows young Ishika Husk, an until now Earthbound science prodigy bound for Mars, where she must help terraform the Red Planet after her family convinced humanity to colonize/occupy/settle it. I've been enjoying this space quite a bit and appreciate being here! Thanks for reading and sharing. Planning to do the 30k in 30d in September 👉🏽 💓💖🩷💜🩵🤎🖤🩶🤍

Not the most impressive update because I only wrote 1,015 words this week out of the current 56,132 words I have in my WIP. However, I have an excellent excuse... I'M AN AUNT!!!! Officially and finally an aunt! My baby sister is the first in our family to have a kid and he is just the cutest thing on the planet. You know I'm just spending all my time cooing over his sweet little face. But I knew this was coming and I told myself I would finish my novel before the end of this month! I have to stick to it so I'm going to work extra hard these last few days to make sure I hit it. Honestly, if I hadn't joined StoryClub, I probably would push it off to the next month (for the third time in a row now) and I've just got to get it done! I will take any and all words of encouragement and words of great encouragement. #projecthailmary Currently, the challenge my protagonist is facing is she is having her final wrestle with truth, which is that people truly do care about her. She has this false belief that family is the only kind of people who can truly care, because it's just been her and her mom forever. But after her mother passes away, she has to learn that she can be alone in the world, but she doesn't have to feel lonely. A difficult challenge for myself to write because I'm just surrounded by family and we're all loving this sweet baby boy. But this is the first draft so we have plenty of time to refine and make it amazing later. This draft just needs to get out!