Tuesday, February 22, 2011

250 Words A Day Challenge

I'm probably the most undisciplined person in the world, or if not, I must be in the top 5 at least. I've written before about my tendency to procrastinate, and there's no question that habit is having an effect on my writing goals. I haven't sent out nearly as many queries as I wanted to in the first two months of the year, simply because I will jump at any excuse to waste time and not work on my writing. With March around the corner, I want to get focused and work more steadily.

While not related to writing, one of the things that has helped me become more disciplined in terms of exercise is participating in the 400 Miles Fitness Challenge, hosted by Ellie at Books, Fitness & Other Stuff. I'm really enjoying keeping track of my miles, and watching the ticker move along towards the 400 mile goal. I know this has helped me stay on track with my exercise, as I've pushed myself when I felt lazy just so I could add some miles to my calendar and to the ticker!

In this spirit, I wanted to find a similar challenge for writing, or at least something that I felt would help me to stay motivated. I ended up committing to the 250 Words A Day Challenge at Debbie Ridpath Ohi's site, Inkygirl.com

This was already one of my favorite sites for writers, as I love Debbie's tips and the Writer's Guide to Twitter, among other features. So I was glad to stumble upon the challenge again, and I hope committing to it will help me stay more focused. I decided to start with 250 words a day even though I also had the option of 500 or 1000 words, as I figured it was better to start small and move up from there.

I posted one of the 250 Words A Day badges on my site to keep me motivated. As per the rules of the challenge, if I don't stay consistent I'll remove it. I like visual motivators, so I think this will be a good one for me.

On a side note, thanks again to everyone who showed up here on the She Writes blog hop. It was great to meet everyone and learn about so many wonderful blogs!

7 comments:

  1. Good luck with your writing challenge! There's nothing like putting your commitment out there in writing to stay motivated ;)

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  2. Good luck with the challenge! I think the badge is brilliant! :)

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  3. Regular writing is a habit I must get into. Good luck with your challenge. I found you through the blog hop and have awarded you the 'One Lovely Blog Award' - http://fionajphillips.blogspot.com/2011/02/ive-won-award.html

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  4. Surge ahead!
    http://cathykozak.com

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  5. Good luck with the writing challenge. And thanks for the shout out about the fitness challenge!

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  6. Julie. I thought I was the only one.(Re procrastination etc.) did catch up with my blog yesterday. I'm still in the world of the maze. I have finished my workshops tho', and did enter a poem in The Writers Digest comp. Onward to a 2,000 word YA.
    Congratulations big time on your blog award. Way to go.

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  7. Thanks all! I hope I will be more productive with this challenge, it will be fun to give it a try anyway.

    @Heather, congrats on your workshops and good luck with the WD comp, that's exciting!

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