Challenge’s End
Things I learned this month.
And just like that, it’s May 31 and the Ninja Writers Post-A-Day challenge is over.
I find it amusing that as this challenge was in its final days, a huge brouhaha exploded on my Twitter feed over an article with the provocative title If You Want to Write a Book, Write Every Day or Quit Now. I Tweeted that I’ve never seen the people on my feed as unified as they were over this article (until two days later when #covfefe became a thing). Everyone, to a person, condemned it, including plenty of published writers.
Of course, when I actually read the article, I didn’t think the guy said anything that outrageous. I agree that it’s a good idea to write at least a little of your novel every day, for exactly the reasons he stated — if you don’t, it’s frighteningly easy to lose the thread of the story, and to start feeling like Crap, I’m so behind, I’ll never catch up, and before you know it, the novel fragment is a distant memory that you’re gonna get around to finishing some day that never actually comes. This is part of why I love NaNoWriMo; it gives me an added incentive to put my butt in the chair and meet that word goal every day.
But I think this whole kerfuffle goes to show you that writing advice is not One Size Fits All. And if I’m not writing a novel, I don’t write every day.
Only that isn’t true either. I do write a little every day, but often it’s just random crap going through my head that I spill out in TextEdit and then forget about. I’d never publish it. It wouldn’t even make any sense to anyone who wasn’t me. It’s just stuff that I need to get out of my mind; it’s like flossing my brain instead of my teeth.
And when I tried to write and post every day this month, I hit the wall hard during the third week. I already have two ongoing writing commitments, and I like the weekly nature of them. They give me plenty of time to work on novels and contests without burning out.
This month, I found that without exception, I got stronger reactions from pieces that I posted because I genuinely had something to say and not just because “Dang, I have to get something up there for the daily post.” This is not surprising.
Even if I didn’t meet the post every day challenge, I don’t regret giving it a try, in no small part because I got to know several other Ninja Writers and I’ve loved reading what they’ve had to say this month.
I will try to post a little more regularly in the event that my brain flossings actually dislodge something I think other people might find interesting. And with that appealing mental image, I’m wrapping up my challenge for this month. Thanks for reading.
I’d ❤ a recommend heart if you enjoyed this. You can find a listing of my fiction on Medium here, and I blog occasionally over at my personal website.
