As if there weren’t enough wonderfully addictive, challenging, and downright fun things for writers to do on the Internet, I’d like to present you with 100 Words. This writing game challenges you to come up with a 100-word entry for each day of the month—as well as for some specific challenges, such as “100 Words About Summer” or “100 Words About Swine Flu”—just to get you to get something on the page every day.
Setting up a profile at the site is very simple, as is submitting the entries themselves, once you know where to go. You can also scan other people’s entries to see what they’ve written for various challenges. Each time you submit an entry, you don’t have to count the words yourself, either, since there is a counter that keeps track for you. (However, I have found that when you add html—for paragraph breaks, italics, or bold items—it counts that as separate words, too, which can be problematic.)
The rules are pretty simple. Each entry has to be exactly 100 words—no more, no less. They all must be published on the days they were written, so no back-entries or writing in advance. For the monthly challenges, entrants may have one “free day” where, if they forget to write or miss a day, they can come back and write for that day, based on the honor system. The day still has to be made up to qualify for that month’s challenge. Entries don’t have to be in a diary format, either; you can write poems, short stories, whatever you like.
The only problem I’ve encountered with the site is that I can’t seem to find a way to remove myself from one of the challenges. I was just playing around with the site during my first use, and joined the August competition before realizing what exactly it was and that I would not be able to create “back-date” entries so late in the game. (In fact, the site’s FAQ says that back-entries aren’t really allowed at all, except for a once-a-month emergency use.) I’d love to be able to delete the challenge from my profile since I can’t do it, and would love any information on how to do that if anyone knows how.
So are you game for this game? Today is September 1, the perfect day to get in on a new month’s challenge. Come and play. Maybe you’ll surprise yourself. If nothing else, you’ll have written 3,000 words by the end of the month, which can be a great accomplishment for any writers currently struggling.
