1-Year Writing Challenge: My First Month’s Impressions
I have been publishing a post daily for a bit more than a month now and I won’t lie: it isn’t easy.
Or at least, not always.
First of all, I believe that if I had done some studies about literature or such, I would have a circle of friends with some of them deeply interested in writing and reading. This would have probably contributed to pushing me to go further and discuss this topic with them. Furthermore, they would have probably been more understanding in that interest I have developed in writing.
Just two days ago, I was talking about this with my girlfriend, who has been quite open with her lack of understanding for this rather new passion. She asked me the following: “Why not post once every two weeks?”. This may be seen as a good option for many and may become one for me too in a while but as of right now, I am enjoying the exercise of discovering how my thought process evolves in time. I do believe that once I will have a firm idea on how I write, what types of texts I enjoy writing and topics I appreciate tackling, a slower rhythm and longer articles should be interesting.
I am perceiving this task pretty much as I was when I first starting learning languages. I can see my skills in writing evolve little by little but I can also start seeing how much more I have to go to become a good writer. I obviously don’t have a solution yet on how to go about it but at least I know what pitfalls I should avoid.
The biggest one I believe is what is often associated to learning languages: the plateau. While I can still see improvements currently, I am well aware that this won’t be the case forever. At one point, it will become incremental improvements that I will barely, if at all, notice.
I have also been able to observe that, as I read in the past, by posting daily, my posts and presence online are starting to be noticed. Not that I am becoming “a star” or anything of the sort but I am getting a little bit more readers. I had 2 weeks ago the highest “growth” in readers since I started and the pleasure of seeing that what I am sharing can be of interest to some was immeasurable.
This being said, I also realize that I need to stay calm and keep on writing like nobody is reading so that I don’t overthink what I write about and can stay both true to me and to you, the few people nice enough to give me a few minutes of your time!
I do have to admit that my expectations about the hardships of finding topics for daily writing have proved to be true. While I try to give myself some sort of schedule, creating it is becoming harder and harder. Luckily I have once or twice a week a new idea that pops up and allows me to modify the schedule and keep things entertaining for myself. I do try to see in my daily life in what I read, live, hear if there are aspects that tickle my fingers. I then try to remember those to combine them with something I can relate and develop into a post.
I am also starting to find a stronger interest in trying to write outside of my “comfort zone” (not that I really have one when it comes to writing). By this, I mean that I want to try writing new types of articles. One that would interest me a lot would be a very short story. It certainly wouldn’t be anything extraordinary but I believe that the mindset I would need to get in to produce such a piece would allow me to discover a new way to develop my articles as a whole. I could also verify whether I enjoy developing such pieces and whether I’d like to make this regular.
As a result, I will try to write one small story by the end of February as a challenge to myself.
Obviously though, this won’t be the only challenge I will go through this month. As the excitement of trying hard to succeed and write every day for a month wears off, I will need to show persistence and seriousness to keep this going.
As long as I keep the process itself of writing pleasant and attracting, I believe February should be okay but I am also well aware of how busy my schedule this month will get. Keeping my life in order while striving to continue developing myself on the side will prove hard without fault.
Only small increments of work done daily will allow me to succeed so let’s keep this easy and just start writing every day. My fingers should be able to handle the rest.
