You can’t ask for better walking weather than we are having right now – it almost makes you forget about winter.

Almost.

In other news, I decided to start a new challenge for myself – a daily writing challenge! I know some of you know of and/or have done National Novel Writing Month (known as Nano in Sarah World), myself included. It really works well for me to have that structure in place to write on a daily basis (if you don’t know what it is, here’s a link to the Internet’s most reliable source, Wikipedia, that gives you the basics). I’m doing Camp NaNo right now, which is a similar event but during the summer. If you’re wondering why I’m absent in the comments a lot right now, blame Camp NaNo.

Last night, I got to thinking while I worked on getting 1,800 words written. Why couldn’t I do something similar with my writing every day, even when NaNo isn’t going on? After all, it’s how I got started on the Dog Walk Challenge over two years ago. Doing NaNo is difficult – it’s a lot of writing, and more than I have time for every day over the course of an entire year, even if I can do it for a month. But I do have time to do an easier challenge – say, 500 words each day.  That’s only a couple paragraphs. I can write that much while waiting at an appointment or while we drive somewhere (well, excepting the whole motion sickness thing). Even on the busiest of days, I could smash out 500 words before going to bed at night.

Then, I thought, that’s not a lot of words each day.  Will I want to give up after a couple weeks, thinking I’m not getting anywhere? Then I did the math (read: broke out my phone’s calculator) and realized that 500 words a day over the course of a year will add up to 182,500 words total. That’s three entire novels, just doing a couple paragraphs a day.

That sealed the deal.

I’m officially doing 500 words of writing a day.

I’ve set a few parameters. I’m going to do 30 days to start, then revisit whether 500 words is appropriate. If not, I’ll adjust. After all, the point is to actually do the work – not say I am going to and never do it. The writing has to be fiction – I can’t count my writing for the 101 Travel Bits series (available at Amazon!), my work writing, or my writing here (“Sure, I wrote 500 words today. Actually, I wrote 1,000 – after all, that’s how much a picture is worth, right?”). I’ll keep everyone up-to-date as part of these Dog Walk Challenge posts, with just a brief tally like I do below for the walks.

I’m really looking forward to this – I’ve always written (I am finishing up editing and incorporating feedback on a novel, to be available soon (hopefully!)), but I have never had the best of habits around it. I think this will force me to develop those habits. And who knows – perhaps sooner than it seems possible, I’ll be on Day 800 of the Daily Writing Challenge (that would be 400,000 words, for those who are counting).

So here goes – starting today, I start the Daily Writing Challenge – update to come next week!

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See this? This is what nearly all of our walks have looked like this week. It has been amazing.

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The Walks:

Day 801/71 (July 10 – Home) – Total Mileage: 3.4 Miles (2 Walks)
Day 802/72 (July 11 – Home) – Total Mileage: 3.4 Miles (2 Walks)
Day 803/73 (July 12 – Home) – Total Mileage: 3.4 Miles (2 Walks)
Day 804/74 (July 13 – Home) – Total Mileage: 2.1 Miles (1 Walk)
Day 805/75 (July 14 – Home) – Total Mileage: 8.2 Miles (3 Walks)
Day 806/76 (July 15 – Home) – Total Mileage: 2.1 Miles (1 Walk)
Day 807/77 (July 16 – Home) – Total Mileage: 3.4 Miles (2 Walks)

The Stats:

Weekly Mileage Total: 26.0 Miles (Average: 3.7 Miles/Day)
Year 3 Mileage Total: 215.6 Miles  (Average: 2.8 Miles/Day)