Interesting Experiment

As most of you know I just took part in the A to Z Blogging Challenge in April. So you’re probably thinking ‘why the heck is she posting already, its only May 1!’ In an effort to stay in the word game I’m thinking my blog is going to become a daily occurrence in the months to come.

Hey, if I can write 11,271 words over the course of one month and have even one or two of the posts involved produce something of value then I’ll have done my job. So I might as well keep that train rolling.

And yes, I did actually go back to all of my posts and add up the word count so that number up there is dead on accurate.

When’s the last time I even considered writing that many words in a month? August last year when I penned Reckless Abandon? The November before that when I did my final NaNo? Some other blog challenge month long thingie?

The answer is that it doesn’t matter when it was, if I can write 11,271 words in a month here imagine what might come out of me if I just keep writing here every month.

If things come to me and I want to write them, I will. Lots of stuff is going on right now so my guess is I’ll have quite a bit to say for a while (you’re welcome). One thing that I really enjoyed about the A to Z Challenge was that I scheduled a couple posts in advance every day. Writing up 2-3 posts every day while posting once a day meant I finished writing most of the month in the first couple weeks.

That allowed me plenty of time to do other things. Other writing projects, other projects, life stuff. It kept my writing muscle working, kept me challenged but also kept me on my toes. If I wasn’t done writing up the posts by lunchtime I knew I’d never have a chance to work on other types of writing that day (fiction, poetry, etc.).

And you know what? That was completely okay. I loved that there were some days I was inspired to move on to other stuff after blogging and there were times I loved spending the day on nothing other than the blog. It’s all still writing. It’s all still valid. Any of it could produce something that turns into something. Writers will understand what I mean.

In addition to finding how much I enjoyed doing the posts I discovered a few new blogs that I’m so happy to have run into. Whether I found them by clicking through the participating links on the sign up website, or they found me and left a comment first, doesn’t matter. I’m enjoying reading their daily posts as well.

The final thing I noticed is that in doing a themed type of post (letters at least in my case since the posting collective had no theme) meant that I had to think long and hard about how to relate a post to every day’s particular letter. That pretty much meant my posts would be short and soft.

The richness of the content may have been edited down but I kind of liked that aspect of this challenge as well and will likely strive to post shorter burst posts all the time from now on (well, okay not all the time, I know some of you know me better than that!). Especially when I’m posting every day. Well maybe I’ll take weekends off. But I can schedule that in advance if I like. It feels more like a job when I’m doing it every day. And I like that. Plus I’m looking forward to doing it because I love it. And loving one’s job can never be a bad thing!