Reflections Post Day, Blogging A-Z Challenge

May 7 is a Reflections Post Day in the Blogging from A-Z Challenge. So what did I discover and learn from blogging 30 days in a row? I re-learned that I'm one of those people who need discipline (i.e. a schedule) in my life or I degenerate into an unmotivated lackluster couch potato that does nothing but play games all day. So in that regard, blogging everyday got me on a schedule and motivated me. It game me a huge feeling of accomplishment. Why? Nothing more complicated than I set a goal for myself and I followed through on it. That, my friends, leaves one with a HUGE sense of self-accomplishment. I didn't even realize the cumulative effect of this challenge until this morning. Yesterday, I made myself a list in the morning. This isn't something new, I often make myself lists, but only when there are a ton of things I need to get accomplished. The difference this time? I wrote writing-related items on this list. I usually keep my daily life and my writing life separate. Merging them into one was a big step for me. It announces (if only to myself) I AM a writer. This may seem like a DUH! type of statement, but it's something internal I didn't even realize I was doing (keeping myself separate). I did almost everything on this list--the two things I didn't accomplish went on today's list (so yes, I still have the stove to clean and one phone call to make). I revised a story. I subbed a story. And then I went on to write, even though it was growing rather late by then and I had nothing to write, I remembered I had a friend's monthly challenge beginning sentence, so I wrote 127 words there. Nothing major, but I accomplished something. This morning I was looking over the end of the A-Z Challenge, and thinking of my reflections post and I realized that yesterday's accomplishment was mainly due to the challenge. I was feeling accomplished and full of goals. That, my friends, is what I call a successful challenge of blogging daily.

A Happy and Surprising Find

I have set out on a new course. Or, I should say, not new, but resuming what I dropped the ball on. From July 26, 2008 until March 15, 2010, I wrote every single day. Yep. 596 days straight of at least 100 words a day. In that time, I wrote about 240,000 words. But during the last month, I was getting really burned out and going through the motions by only writing 100 words per day. So one thing led to another and I slowed and eventually came to a complete halt. I had a spreadsheet tracking my progress, but I quit keeping track as my initiative slowed to a stop. So last week, when I decided it was high time I got back on that writing horse, I opened up my spreadsheet and started in again. I'm not going to try to re-create my writing every single day. I don't have a firm goal yet, as a matter of fact, but I'm toying with the idea of a monthly/weekly goal instead of daily. Although, writing daily works for me, because it keeps me in the habit. Nevertheless, I've spent this morning brushing the cobwebs off my spreadsheet. And I realized all those blank lines from Jan. 2011 to present day weren't *really* blank, because I have continued to do the flash challenges at Liberty Hall. So I went back today and entered all those stories in my spreadsheet. Then I opened each story to get the word count. And guess what I found? There are lots of gems in those stories that I didn't think were worth finishing. I haven't started a "new" story in probably a year -- or so I thought, until I reminded myself of those flash challenges. See, we write using a prompt and a timer, for 90 minutes, and then turn in the "finished" flash story. Except I'm famous for not finishing, because I have a hard time wriitng a flash story. Every once in a while, I'll get on that can end in 1000 words, but often, it's the beginning of a longer story. But I've never finished them because I never think they're worth finishing. But maybe what I'm judging them on is how they compared to the other stories of the week, which is usually now great. But today I realized that I need to judge them by what's started happening in the story, and I bet I can finish quite a few of them. Now I'm all jazzed that while I thought I had a dearth of stories to work from/with, I actually have a lot. They can't all be rescued, of course, but there's a few gems in there. I love discovering things like that. So now I can go from not thinking I had a story to work on every day to realizing I have quite a few.