The Finish Line(ish)

10 Days to 20k, Day 10

Allison Temple
Aug 8, 2017 · 2 min read

Well. That’s it folks. Except not really. I crossed 30k in 10 days today. I didn’t think that was even possible when I left the office 10 days ago. I’d put my hands up and cry like an Olympic sprinter, except I haven’t really finished anything. My best estimate is I’ve got 40k to go to get to the end of this draft, and I already know I have to completely rewrite Martin’s back story for the first 30k or so.

No one said novel writing is easy.

Here are the things I’ve learned over the last 10 days and 30,000 words

  • Writing is work. If you want to finish writing in a timely manner, understand you’ve got to put the work in.
  • I write best when I’m writing fast. I’d written about 30k when I started 10 days ago. It had taken a little over 3 months to write. I had no confidence in this story, because it had no momentum and neither did I. Now, I know where this is going, and I know there’s some good bits in here.
  • Just keep writing. I don’t correct typos when I’m drafting. If my your and you’re are out of place, if my characters right an email instead of writing an email, tough. I’ll fix them later. Ain’t nobody got time right now.
  • A Pomodoro timer is awesome. 25 minutes on, 5 minutes to surf the internet. My tiny attention span is a problem when I’m writing at home. The timer was a great way to keep me working even when I wanted to see if anything new had happened on Twitter in the last 5.2 milliseconds.
  • Your mileage may vary. Writing is not a race or a contest. If you take 10 days off to write, you might write 30k too. But you might write 300 words, or 60k. I am not your guru. Celebrate your successes, whatever they are.

I’m pretty proud of myself. I’m a baby writer with a tiny fledgling career. I sent Kyle and Adam to Riptide to start editing today. I have no idea what that means really, except sometime in the next several months, I’ll get an email with my document all marked to hell and I’ll have to do something about it. The 30k this week means hopefully I’ll have time to balance both works in progress when that happens.

10 Days to 20k Summary
Day: 10
Words Written Today: 3,820
Total Words Written: 30,451
Words Left: 0
Percent Complete: 152%


Allison Temple is a romance writer, novice cat lady, and expert couch potato from Toronto. Her debut series is coming from Riptide Publishing in 2018.

Originally published at allisontempleblog.wordpress.com on August 8, 2017.

Allison Temple

Written by

Writer, wife, wrangler (no particular order). I like to keep busy. Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/cjANow https://allisontempleblog.wordpress.com

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