The Writing Challenge Midway Point

©Robert Eilers

It is now day 15 of my Write Everyday For 30 Days Challenge.  At this point I am having mixed feelings about it but I have also learned some things about myself which is good.

My initial purpose for taking this  journey through the Write Everyday For 30 Days challenge was to finally get some short stories finished or written so I could begin sending them out for possible publication, unfortunately that is not happening.  I am writing everyday so I’m meeting the challenge just not the way I had wanted.  So far I have written several poems and blog posts.  Worked on writing exercises from the Butt-in-chair ebook by Jennifer Blanchard and started to do Morning Pages.  All of which is good because I am exercising my writing muscle and that can only make me a better writer.

There have been a few things that I have learned and may help you as well.

• Look past my fears…”I am a good writer and will only get better the more I write” is my writer affirmation that I created in one of the Butt-in-chair exercises to help me through those times when fear has shown up to mock me.   I realized that even though I’m writing there has to come a time when those writings have to be sent out into the world and see if they stick to anything.
• Don’t think, just write is something that is hard for me to do.  I’m constantly analyzing before I ever lay any words down whether that would be the best way to write that.  Just one sentence or word has to be sent through the sifter before anything can happen.  That is something I have to work on stopping and writing the Morning Pages is a great exercise in doing just that.
• Take more time preparing blog posts…After the first two blog posts I could see that if I had taken more time to think out the subject they would have been better blog posts.  Editing needs more time as well.  There have been a couple posts where I wish I had thought through the title more.  Patience.

Even though I’m not getting done what I had initially hoped to I can feel my mind transforming into a more creative palatable entity.

After doing a challenge have you learned anything about yourself that you did not know about or thought you could do?