Tag Archives: blogging

Z to A Even Day Challenge report

Now that we’re a third of the way into July, I thought I’d report on how the Z to A Even Day Challenge worked out.

I was able to stick to the schedule pretty faithfully, only missing the appointed date a couple of times. The every-other-day format allowed me to post a day late without falling behind on subsequent postings, exactly as it was intended to do. This kept the stress level very low, which was also one of the objectives.

I wrote almost every day, whether or not it was a posting day. On the  days I didn’t get to write, I thought about writing: possible topics, what I wanted to say, etc. To my mind, that’s almost as good as writing, because that’s the groundwork. With stuff in my brain clamoring to get out onto the page, I had a jump start the next time I sat down to work.

With my unplanned week off the grid, the challenge worked out almost exactly to fill the months of May and June. I wrote every day during that week away and continue to do so, though not everything I’ve written has been blog material. The real point of the exercise was to support a habit of daily writing, and it succeeded marvelously.

So where do I go from here?

  • I write every day. If I’m at a loss about what to write, I use whatever letter of the alphabet corresponds to that day’s date as a jumping off point.
  • I post to this blog at least once a week, more often if I have something appropriate.
  • I continue to read and respond to comments, to other blogs, to books and movies and the world around me.
  • I give thanks for you, my readers and companions on the journey. Your very presence encourages me more than you could know.

Onward and inward/upward/outward!

Z to A Even Day Challenge

The April A to Z Challenge was a great way to jump-start my writing again, though I found the daily aspect an unwelcome source of added stress. If I had participated from the beginning rather than hopping on near the end as I did, I think I would have been thoroughly burnt out with the whole thing by now.

The upshot is that I’ve decided to attempt a variation on this writing/blogging challenge for the next several weeks. The idea is to post on every even-numbered calendar day, which allows a little more time to think and polish. My hope is to raise the quality of the published writing and reduce the amount of stress associated therewith.

I’ve also decided to work my way backwards through the alphabet, as I found the letter prompts arbitrary enough to inspire creativity but predictable enough get me thinking ahead. I plan to be more subtle with this challenge and abandon the “X is for Y” approach, which becomes tedious after a bit.

If you decide to follow along in your own writing, I’d love to hear about it. Your company on this journey is most welcome, either as a reader or a fellow writer.

Z is for zero

…days left in the April A-Z Challenge!

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what I’ll do when the month ends. I’ve posted more consistently (and gotten more traffic) than at any time since I began this blog, and I hate to lose that momentum. On the other hand, I’ve come to see that there is a certain tyranny in the requirement to post daily: the demands can be wearing on readers and blogger alike. I think I’ve seen a certain degree of reader fatigue, and I know that the quality of the posts has not been consistently what I would like it to be.

I’ve been trying to cultivate the habit of daily writing for some time now, but that sort of writing isn’t always fit for publication. I think journals are a good place to do that, and I’ve been making use of mine for that purpose. A fair amount of what I’ve written on a daily basis hasn’t made it to the blog, but it has been good for me to be stretched by the letter prompts and by the need to produce something postable every day. I’m not sure, however, that it’s a sustainable practice for me over the long term.

In the interest of everyone’s sanity, I’ve decided to institute the Z-A Even Day Challenge. I will work my way backwards through the alphabet (since I missed the first two-thirds of it) with the commitment to post on even-numbered calendar days. This will take me through May and well into June, by which time I hope to figure out something else to do to keep myself writing.

I’ll keep you posted, and I’d love to hear any feedback or ideas you might have. Thanks for reading!