My December Writing Challenge: Week One Update

So today I wanted to talk about the writing challenge I started on December 1st. I won’t go into every single detail, but basically I created a Christmas writing challenge for myself that runs from December 1st to December 25th. The idea is simple:

• Day 1 → 500 words
• Day 2 → 600 words
• Day 3 → 700 words

…and so on, adding 100 words each day until December 25th, where the goal is 2,900 words.

It’s kind of like doing NaNoWriMo, but mini and holiday-themed. The whole purpose is to push myself to finish a story I’ve been stuck on forever.

Why I Needed This Challenge

The story I’m working on is based on a YouTube video I saved to my iPod Classic (I’m preserving all my favorite media in case YouTube ever disappears, lol). When I rewatched the video, I realized my original outline was honestly… terrible. Like embarrassingly bad. So I decided to rewrite the whole thing from scratch, sticking closer to the vibe of the video. Best decision ever.

Week One Progress

It’s only the end of week one and I’ve already written more than half of my story. I also set myself an extra rule:
Push really hard in the beginning so that when the word counts get bigger (like 2,000+), I don’t fall behind. I knew work would drain me, and that I’d likely crash later in the week. Spoiler: I was right.

Here’s how the week went:

• Day 1: Wrote 2,000+ words. Finished three chapters of my main story plus a chapter of another project. Insane start.
• Day 2: Even better — 2,700 words.
• Day 3: Wrote 2,225 words.
• Day 4: This is where I crashed — 1,566 words.
• Day 5 (Thursday): 981 words.
• Day 6 (Friday): 965 words — didn’t meet my word goal.

Thankfully, today (still Day 7 as I’m writing this), I managed to catch up. The goal was 1,100 words and I wrote 1,455. I finished two stubborn chapters, started a new one, and even worked on another story so I don’t get bored.

Tomorrow is Monday, and I have work again, so we’ll see if I manage the 1,200-word goal for Day 8. The daily goals are only going to climb from here.

My “Carry-Over Rule”

If I fail a day (for example, on Day 25 if I have to write 2,900 words but only manage 500), the leftover words get converted into a new mini-challenge later. Probably for January. Then I can use that mini-challenge to finish short stories, random chapters, or spark new ideas.

What This Challenge Has Made Me Realize

I have way too many drafts.
Like… WAY too many.

Some of them date back four years, sitting on Wattpad collecting dust. I don’t want to work on all of them anymore — they don’t represent who I am now. So I’ll be moving a lot of those drafts to Google Drive and deleting some of the older Wattpad projects entirely. I might rewrite a few during the holidays, but that’s still undecided.

Luckily, I’m getting a long vacation around New Year’s, so I’ll have plenty of time to reorganize everything and start 2026 fresh.

Seasonal Writing Challenge Plan

One last thing: I’m planning to repeat this writing challenge four times a year —

• once in winter
• once in spring
• once in summer
• once in autumn

Because honestly? I need it. I have too many story ideas, and I get inspired too easily. Doing this challenge every season will help me actually finish things.

So yeah — that’s my week one update. I’m proud of myself so far, and I hope this inspires someone else to try a small writing challenge too. Let’s see how week two goes.