Writing Challenge Comparison: 1000 Words of Summer vs NaNoWriMo

I just wrapped up my second writing challenge - 1000 Words of Summer, created by Jami Attenberg. This year, it ran from May 31 - June 13, 2021. I really enjoyed this challenge and wanted to examine why it seemed so much easier than NaNoWriMo (beyond the reduced timeframe and word count). I've boiled it down to three areas, including the aforementioned 'obvious':

Word Count

1000 Words of Summer is a two-week commitment of 1,000 words a day (totaling 14,000), whereas NaNoWriMo runs an entire month and shoots for a whopping 50,000 words - that's 1,667 a day if you're able to maintain a constant daily rate. 1,000 words is 60% of the NaNoWriMo daily goal, and somehow that differential makes it feel all the more achievable. I didn't have any real trouble catching up after I missed the first two days, and often felt that I could spend more time writing once I'd hit the daily goal. Although this reduction in time seems obvious for why 1000 Words is more doable, I also wonder if I developed good habits from NaNoWriMo that enabled me to breeze through this challenge. Using tools like 4TheWords certainly helped - a method I had learned from NaNoWriMo that really worked for my motivation. 

Flexibility

The goal of NaNoWrimo is to work on one seminal novel - hence the 'National Novel Writing Month' that comprises the title. Of course, you could deviate and work on a series of smaller pieces, but the community discussion is generally around the progression of the novel. 1000 Words of Summer doesn't fixate on a single objective beyond write 1000 words a day for two weeks. This means that you could work on your novel, short story collection, letters to the editor, general rants, et cetera, without feeling as if you were straying from the central purpose. Personally, I was able to work on 3 self reflections (including this post), 2 novellas (or at least the beginnings), and 2 shorter stories. Having the freedom of breadth really helped me explore my creativity and truly write with whatever came to mind that day.

Community

NaNoWriMo has a wealth of resources - one might even say a glut. 1000 Words of Summer, on the other hand, is neatly packaged into one reminder email a day from the creator herself. There's a Slack community that is entirely optional (really, the email newsletter is too), but it also provided moral support and motivation in a manner that put faces to names in a way NaNoWriMo didn't. While there were subreddits for NaNo, tons of write-ins, localized newsletters, virtual happy hours and the like, it just seemed like too much at once and resulted in choice paralysis when it came to engaging with the community. I do want to caveat that 1000 Words may not have the reach that NaNo does at the moment, and can therefore accommodate a smaller population through Slack.

Final Thoughts

All in all, there are certainly more words produced from NaNoWriMo, and thus it feels like a greater accomplishment. However, it also had the effect that I did not want to write for quite some time afterwards since it had been such a sprint to the end. With 1000 Words, I feel more general momentum from having enjoyed the challenge in its entirety, although my writing efficacy post-challenge remains to be seen.