Bored? Here Is a 30 Day Writing Challenge to Get You Stirred Up!

Dear friends!

Probably it’s just fall time that causes some mood swings and occasional unwillingness to work. Lots of my friends tell me every day that they are bored because they don’t have anything interesting happening right now or they feel drained of strength and can’t finish anything they’ve started. Don’t know about you, but I just can’t stand this feeling when you don’t know what is wrong but can’t get yourself to do things. It means that it’s time to take action! And from now on I declare a 30 day writing challenge!

I think that’s a great opportunity to shake up when you don’t feel like doing anything. It has various perks that will boost your productivity:

•              you improve your skills by writing something every day;
•              you send away your fall moodiness;
•              you form a useful habit that you will surely benefit from.

Doesn’t it sound great? I bet it does. So, I will certainly accept this challenge and we’ll see the results after a month. I will do reports every 5 days to show my daily writing (and to control myself a little bit too). My 30 day writing challenge starts on November 1 and ends on November 30, 2015. I am very excited and encourage you to do the same. I’ve heard a lot of writers’ warm feedback on such kind of challenges and want to have some of my own.

So, who’s in with me?

What Is the Best Time to Write?

I've recently bumped into an article by +Tanya Golash-Boza in her blog Get a Life, PhD. Her article deals with productivity and shares some tips on when it is better to write and how often you should engage in this activity. From her personal experience, she says that she gets up before everybody's awake and devotes this time to writing because that's the time when she's the most productive. Moreover, she mentions a study that looked into 3 groups of writers. One of them was called “the forced writers” who were to write five days a week. The findings have shown that other writers, who had to produce texts only when they had inspiration to, wrote much less than the forced writers and had few creative ideas. So, the conclusion here is that daily writing is a really fruitful activity especially when you have a lot of deadlines.

I decided to try this method and scheduled to write for two hours from 7 a.m. till 9 a.m. five days a week. I have been following this plan for 4 weeks so far and I have to admit that the results are amazing and you’ll understand why. The timing was perfect because my husband was already at work and my kids were still sleeping (school holidays could not have come at a better time). I was able to arrange my writing space in an ultimate order, turn on my favorite music and plunge into words without being bothered.

As it appeared, I’m really much more productive in the morning because my previous experience of being awake at 2 a.m. and doing what is called “writing” ended up in multiple revisions and editions. But my morning endeavors have brought about lots of original texts with minimum changes afterwards. Isn’t that great?

But let’s move to the actual numbers. So, before my experiment, I wrote approximately 1-1.5 page a day (together with drafting, revising, editing, etc.). But at present, when I follow the schedule I produce 2-3 pages and sometimes even more! Apart from my planned writing sessions, from time to time, I return to my texts several times a day, just because I have inspiration.

Well, you can see it for yourself that the results are incredible, at least for me! It’s totally worth trying, even just because you must always try something new.

So, write and enjoy, my dear friends.

Thank you, +Tanya Golash-Boza for such valuable tips!

My Name’s Lily and I’m in Writer’s Support Group

Of course, there are writers in the world who can shape and develop their talents without any external help. And they are better on their own. Bust most of writers gather knowledge from the surrounding world: books, mentors and writing colleagues.

 There are numerous websites, Facebook pages, LinkedIn groups that share tips and guidelines on how to improve your writing quality and productivity and it seems that these people are real professionals with deep expertise in the field. And it’s really great because there is a mere part of information you can’t find nowadays (God bless the Internet). But what can you do when you happen to look for the answers and don’t come across them after all? That’s right! You ask questions.

From my experience being a member of previously mentioned communities in the web gives writers an advantage to stay relevant and know all the tendencies of the writing world. And it seems that these are the places where you can pose questions and get the answers. But frankly speaking, when I really needed some advice and guidelines, these were not my first aid post. I was shy and couldn’t make myself type a question and, to tell the truth, I was too afraid to appear stupid or incompetent in front of my colleagues. That was silly and I know this now. But back then, I was in search of help and that’s when I discovered special writer’s support groups. I got what I needed and most importantly, I overcame this barrier and started to ask questions without any hesitation.

Now there are many online resources like The Self-Doubting Writers Support Group where you can surf the forum pages and find the information you need (or better to say the confidence you lack) and start your own talk. Another helpful web site is Insecure Writer’s Support Group which offers various information and writing tips together with announcement of different relevant events. Also you can follow Writing Meetups and share your views or seek the answers in live communication.

As you can see there are loads of opportunities you can make use of and there is nothing shameful in the fact that you need help. It’s natural. So, push your fears aside and go for it! Maybe that’s the solution that will change your life.

After-Birthday Talks or What You Need to Do to Be a Happy Writer

I bet you know the feeling when you enjoy everything that surrounds you: morning coffee (even if it’s without milk), your old but dear laptop (even when it doesn’t want to collaborate) and your neighbor’s golden retriever Bumblebee (even if it sometimes wakes you up in the middle of the night). So, that’s the feeling I have now and that inspires me to write. Thus, I’ve decided to make an after-birthday blog post, analyze my previous year and think what I should or shouldn’t do.

First of all, I clearly decided to avoid a few things: leaving for the airport without plane tickets, following all tips from LifeHack.org and adding too much baking soda to the pizza dough. But these are little things. The most incredible discovery I made last year is free writing. Seriously, it’s one of the best things I’ve learned during my writing career. I’m sure that every writer eventually faces that unfortunate block and I’m not an exception. In fact, it was a real problem for me to overcome and I tried a lot of things: changing environment, listening to music or drawing mind maps. But there were times when even those pills didn’t work. Finally, I came across free writing and understood that when you have a writer’s block and nothing works out, you just write continuously for a certain period of time about anything that comes to your mind. And it fades away. And then even your Transformers-loving neighbor’s dog can distract you from the creative process. 

Now, when I am surrounded by people I love, when I do what I really like and know how to overcome the obstacles and enjoy every bit of my life, I can surely say that I feel happy and delighted. That’s what the life must be for me. So, it means that I’m doing great J