Challenges
The Five Hundred
The 500 is a challenge to all writers everywhere: write 500 words a day, every day, for a year.
The essential thing a writer must do is write. This is also often the hardest thing for a writer to do. Deadlines and challenges often spur a writer to simply sit down and write.
Other challenges, weekend, month long, and everything in between, exist to do just that: inspire writers to complete something with the use of a big and impending Deadline, and no small amount of public humiliation from friends and family if success is not reached.
These challenges, while fantastic, are sprints. Even writing for an entire month is a sprint; it's only 30 days. Thirty days come to a close fast. Afterward, you can take a breather. Relax, and not write for an entire year.
But, writers must write. So, BNO challenges you, the writer, to write 500 words a day for an entire year. You get five (yes, you read that right, just five) "days off" where The 500 thunderbolts will pass you by. Because we all get sick, cranky, and have Aunt Mable come by for a visit. But, really, 500 words isn't a whole lot to write when you get right down to it. So, even if your spouse has two broken legs, or your children have decided to track an entire soccer field's worth of mud right into your living room, put aside some time to write.
Use this challenge to your advantage; force yourself to spend time with words every day. Work on your craft in small, manageable chunks.
You could even go so far as to let your friends and family know about your intent to write your 500, and post your word count to your blog, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, even good old fashioned emails and phone calls, whatever will keep you accountable.
What counts? Everything and anything that furthers your personal ability as a writer. We strongly recommend practicing within your preferred area of writing - fiction, non-fiction, poetry, urban steam punk fantasy with dinosaurs and a baby who rule the world - as this is where you'll get the most benefit. You could write your blog or a journal too, though, if that's not your craft, practicing it doesn't help you grow your abilities as an artist very much.
The big point here - write 500 continuous words.
Why continuous? Editing a large body of writing - say a novel or a text book - could easily cause one to write 500 words in a day, scattered throughout the original text block. While necessary, this is not writing 500 words, this is editing, a process which cleans up and tightens something you've already written, perhaps even as a part of The 500.
Though, if you add a completely new scene to said large body of writing, it could easily add up to 500 words as well, and be continuous, and thus count for your 500.
Get it? Good! Much as we hate to see you go, we suggest you get off the Internet and write Your 500.