My 500 Words

A community committed to writing

Start a Daily Writing Habit

You love writing but have never been good at the whole discipline thing. Everyone says you ought to be writing every day, but how?

My 500 Words is a 31-day challenge designed to help you answer that question. It will help you get more disciplined at writing, hone your craft, and finally become the writer you dreamed of being.

Ready to get started? Read below to get all the details.

The rules

  • Write 500 words per day, every day for 31 days.
  • You can write more if you want, but 500 words is the minimum.
  • Don’t edit. Just write.
  • If you miss a day, pick up where you left off. Don’t make up for lost days.
  • Encourage, don’t criticize (unless explicitly invited to do so).
  • Blogging counts, but email does not.
  • All of this is completely free.

How it works

  1. Leave a comment below.
  2. Add your blog to the linkup below (if you’re a blogger).
  3. Write every day, and record your progress (Maybe use Lift for this).
  4. Join the Facebook group for accountability, encouragement, and daily writing ideas. You can also tweet your progress with the hash tag #my500words.
  5. Sign up for email updates (below) to get free writing tips and prompts via email.
  6. At the end of the month, consider keeping up the habit. A whole year of 500 words a day adds up to over 180,000 words!

Join the free challenge

Enter your email to get free updates, writing prompts, and other inspiration:






Share with a friend

Want to represent My 500 Words on your blog, website, or via social media? Grab the widget and embed it wherever you want.

You can download the image below by clicking the link to see the full version, then right-clicking (or control-clicking on a Mac) to “save as.”

Or just copy and paste the code into any HTML text area on your website.

My 500 Words Widget

My 500 Words Widget

Here’s the landscape version (perfect for Facebook covers!):

My 500 Words

Link up your blog

If you’ll be blogging through the challenge and want to link up with other bloggers, add your blog link to the Participant Blog page (and be sure to visit another blog and say hi!).

Don’t miss the email updates

Enter your email to make sure you get all the updates sent to you via email: