Welcome to Day 5 of the Write the Story! writing challenge. We are five days into the challenge and, other than these blog posts, I have yet to write any words on my story. And, you know what? I am okay with that.

I haven't added anything to the plot of my current work in progress, but I am still writing words.

And those words count. Even if they are not part of a story.

They count because I wrote them. They count because writing them involves me showing up. They count because they require me to flex my writing muscle.

In other words, writing the words for these posts still helps me reignite my writing habit.

And that leads me to today's encouragement and inspiration that comes author Jane Yolen (if you have children, you may be familiar with her How Do Dinosaurs... picture book series).

“Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.”

I appreciate this take on daily writing because of its flexibility in flexing my writing muscle. I like that she includes writing a letter, a title list, a character sketch, and even a journal entry. Because of course all of those should count toward your writing habit.

So, kudos to you, my friend, for exercising your writing muscle through this challenge. As you do that, you are also accumulating words for your November writing goal.

And that is worth celebrating!

Remember: drop your daily word count in the comments so we can track your daily word count and provide you a final total when we hit November 30.