NaNoWriMo: An Alternative Challenge

It's almost that time again. November is just around the corner, which means it's NaNoWriMo again. Are you ready to pump out 50,000 words in 30 days? It's a great way to work on that novel or novella you've been putting off. It's a great challenge to see what you are made of and how far you can push yourself. I did the challenge in 2009 and managed to complete 50,000 words with two days to spare! It was fun, exciting, as well as, an eye-opener of my limitations and capabilities as a writer (when I started it, I really didn't think I would be able to make the 50,000 word goal, but I pushed through anyways). It taught me how to write without the inner editor, the creative benefits of writing everyday, how to organize my life so that I could write everyday and that I could push myself to reach any goal if I wanted it bad enough. It also taught me how exhausting writing 50,000 words in a month is and that I really don't need to do that again any time soon. One time was enough, but I highly recommend the challenge if you have not tried it before. If you want to learn more about the official NaNoWriMo check it out here.

Writing Challenge: A Challenge for All

Writing is something that I truly love to do, but even that love can falter by my personal shortcomings, so I find that in challenging myself to be better I can plow through some of my procrastination and self doubt. Every once in a while I like to come up with challenges for myself that gets me motivated, drives me forward, and expands my experience that much more.

Right now my challenge to myself is to write 50 articles for www.associatedcontent.com by the end of April. I started at the beginning of March and so far I have 12 articles and have a multitude of others in the works as well as a notebook full of ideas. I'm not sure if I'll reach my magical number of 50, but I've enjoyed the challenge so far. It will not only help me work on a deadline, but it will give me a library of articles to use to help promote my writing abilities, and with every word I write I become better at my craft. If you wish you help support my efforts go to my contributor page to check out a listing of articles.

I also want to throw out a challenge for all fellow writer's everywhere to actively challenge yourself to be better in your craft. You can only become better by doing. Whether it be submitting for a writing contest, writing articles for an online site, or some other self imposed challenge, it is important to constantly try to find ways to motivate yourself to be better. I implore you to take up a torch and let it shine!

The Excuse

Yeah, it's that guilty pleasure that we indulge in way too often called the excuse. It's another way to procrastinate and to tell ourselves it's alright to put something off. I'm exceptionally guilty of this particular offense. If there is an excuse in the book, I've used it and this couldn't be more true than with my writing.

We discussed the issue of 'painful writing' today at my writer's meeting. Some people don't seem to have this problem, but for the rest of us out there who do... well you know what I'm talking about. It's sitting at the laptop and feeling it building as soon as you fire the device up. The worst of it hits full force as soon as the document file opens up. Black and white text stares back mocking you, but you suddenly remember something you forgot to do that just has to be done right that moment, so what do you do? That's right, you jump up to go do it real quick and then conveniently forget that you'd actually intended to get some writing done that day. Yeah, you feel smug because you got so much accomplished for the day, except for the one thing that you really want to do... to write.