THIRTY ONE DAYS

Well I did it. I blogged every day for the month of July. You have learned a lot about me. Sorry, only close relatives should be subjected to that. I’ve talked about everything from dandelions and puppies to racism and terrorism. And of course books. The Ultimate Blog Challenge takes place every January, April, July and October. There is a Blogging From A To Z Challenge that takes place in April. And there is NaNoWriMo in November which is about writing a 50,000 word book in 30 days. And there are scores more. Will I do it again? Maybe. I’m not sure. It does force you to write every single day. Which is good. It is kind of like going to the gym. Sure you can exercise at home but… It is too easy to slack off. You meet so and so at the gym. You paid for the gym. You have accountability. These writers’ challenges are like a writing gym. You signed up. Everybody knows it. If you slack off everyone will know. Accountability. And you develop discipline. If you are a writer, you should write every single day even if it is not working on your next book. I think the writing every day will keep me writing every day. Or maybe I will need a refresher now and then.

One positive was the writing. Which also kept going once the post was done each day so the next book benefited. Another positive was finding a lot of really great blogs. Were there negatives? Yes. I think of bloggers as writers. Big mistake. A lot of bloggers are trying to sell you something and this challenge was a bit heavy on those. They want you to see and comment on their blog (the idea behind the challenge) but they are very poor at returning the favor. And, as a matter of fact, my views per hour went down during this month. Why? I’m not sure. I only recently started noticing it so perhaps it happens in July because people are on vacation. I did notice a couple of other people who took part complaining about this. So if I do it again, I will do it in a challenge geared toward writers and not in a summer month.

I did more than the required 31 and there is one more today after this! They are all listed and linked below.