A Gremlin in the works – 31 day blog challenge
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There’s a gremlin in the works. I set out this month to write a blog post every day. If you are a subscriber, don’t panic. I am not going to post them every day – that would be too much. I’m scheduling them and spacing them out. I decided to do this as a challenge which would be a little less onerous than the famous NaNoWriMo. You don’t know what that is? It’s a daily challenge, known in full as National Novel Writing Month. Launched in the USA back in 1997 it happens every November. It is an opportunity to set a challenge to write 50,000 words in the month, doing a little each day. The idea is that you write a novel in the month and then have something to start to work on and edit into shape. The focus is overcoming writers’ block and just writing whatever comes through. It’s a great idea. I did it about 15 years ago and it really worked.
At the moment, I just don’t have the time to do that – but I thought I could produce a blog post, even if it’s a short one – each day this month. Scheduling seemed like a great idea, although some of you may have noticed that two slipped out last Friday as I pressed the wrong link on my phone and accidentally posted whilst on a train. Oops, sorry about that.
This challenge also grew from a process of reflection on the blog. Since I began blogging back in 2003 I have written the grand total of 555 posts. I thought it would be good to go back and read through and see how style and content had changed over that time. One thing that struck me was how readable some of those early posts are (some aren’t brilliant either, to be fair). And that often the interesting ones were setting out what I was reading, listening to, what I was thinking about.
From all of this, it struck me that whilst I think I may have “upped my game” with blogging over the years, that has led to less informal blog posts. Certainly I write a lot less about music, stuff I am reading – and where I am travelling etc. So, as part of this challenge I will be doing more of that. Writing more about the everyday stuff that I am working on and thinking about.
I hope it is of value.
Footnote: this is the 5th of 31 posts…
Also published on Medium.
2 thoughts on “A Gremlin in the works – 31 day blog challenge”
Thanks Jayne. I appreciate the comment
What a fantastic personal challenge Stuart. Here’s to your success in achieving 31!
I think blogging is very personal – I like to think I have a purpose for mine. Like you, I think the best ones (or should I say the ones I’ve actually posted) have either shared something personal, shared something about my own learning, or just a shout out when I needed to.
Anyway, keep up the great work. (Those gremlins are pesky critters)