Coming Soon to Wrandom Writer

The past few months have been really crazy! I haven't been reading like I should, which is why there haven't been many Book List posts up here. Instead, I've been blogging on my year-long challenge blog! The 2013-Challenge has been going extremely well. I've only missed 2 days of writing since January 1st, which is amazing for me!

Next month, I'll be doing another round of Camp NaNoWriMo, on top of my every-weekday blogging. I've decided to spend the entire month of March preparing myself-- outlining, scheduling, creating characters, creating plot lines, and generally brainstorming and researching for the project. April's NaNo event will be spent writing a first draft!

Conquering the Blank Page

This is based off of my 2013-Challenge post from Tuesday, but I liked it enough to post it here as well... Enjoy!

This 2013-Challenge is an actual challenge! I'm really nervous about this project, still, even though we are almost halfway through the third week. You'd think I would have calmed down and settled into a groove by now, wouldn't you? Not a chance! I'm still anxious about having such a heavy commitment. I'm still jittery about meeting the blank page every morning, and fearful of going to bed with a blank page.

But today I realized that when all the structure and rules and demands are striped away, the point of this project is to create stuff constantly. The point is to form new artist habits. The point is to face this blank page every single (week)day, and fill it with 'me' through writing, learning, thinking, drawing, and just creating. The 300-word rule is there to force me out of laziness, and even today at the late hour I'm finishing this, I'm not going to break the 300-word rule! I can't be complacent in forming habits, or I won't get the results I'm going for. But this is me, sitting down at the tail-end of the day, conquering the blank page. And I'm not doing it for you, a reader. And I'm not doing it to become popular. And I'm not doing it because I want to be published or anything like that. I'm doing this to prove to this blank page that there is absolutely no reason to leave a page blank.

The 2013 Challenge Project

I was considering keeping this a secret-- just for me, myself, and I-- but I've started a New Year's Resolution project and I wanted to share it. I want the accountability of my family and friends asking about it, I want an audience that depends on me to continue it, but I don't want people to read the crap that is bound to come out of this project. But I've decided to share.

The project is to write something every weekday for the entirety of 2013. Instead of posting on the Wrandom Writer blog and clogging up my good posts with a lot of every-day yuck, I've decided to start a new feed that is dedicated to the challenge. I will still be posting things on Wrandom Writer just as much as I always have-- I try to post between 2 and 4 posts a month, when possible. If I write something extraordinarily good for my Challenge feed, I will post it here as well.

Hopefully, this challenge will make me write more, and it will help me come up with better ideas, better posts, and better art. As they say, practice makes perfect, and that's the point of this Challenge blog. To practice. To make mistakes. To make terrible first drafts. So enjoy!

2013-Challenge.com