I'm committing to a NaNoWriMo-style Challenge for this book

Goal: 45,000 words by 12/1

Even though the official NaNoWriMo project is dead¹, I’ve decided to use it as inspiration to make headway on the “Product Thinking for Engineers” book project.

The traditional NaNoWriMo challenge is:

1. 50,000 words

2. Start from scratch

3. All words related to the project count.

I’m doing it differently:

1. I’m aiming for 45,000 words, not 50,000. This is roughly 150 pages, the minimum I consider a viable book length.

2. I’m starting with an existing manuscript at 21,733 words.

3. Only words in the manuscript count. Notes, outlines, blog posts, etc., do not.

This means an average of 776 words, or 2.5 pages, every day. That feels difficult but achievable. I’m ready to finish this project, and I hope this will be the kick-in-the-pants that I need. The clock silences the ego.

For that reason, this Substack will be on the back burner for a month. I may post some drafts and content along the way if it feels worth sharing, or a random post if I have an itch², but no promises. Then I will spend December getting back on my usual bullshit or recovering from the burnout of this challenge. Only time will tell.

I’m doing this along with a couple of people from the Useful Books author community. If you’re interested in taking on a similar challenge, respond in the comments or DM me. We can help keep each other accountable.

See you soon, hope you had a happy Halloween! 👻

1. 😔

2. In my experience, work begets work. Maybe I’m wrong, and all this extra book writing will result in even more content here, book-related or not.