Jul 22

Jul 22 I Tried A 30-Day Writing Challenge For The First Time and Here's How It Went

T.K.

Blog image source: WordPress “Life, Entirely”

Child, ever since I turned twenty-fine, my thoughts about where I am and where I’m not have been like a giant foot in my ass, swirling around very uncomfortably, as I swiftly head out of one decade into the next.

Aging f****** sucks right now and I hate that it sucks to me. I wish I didn’t feel this way, but I always have, even back to my adolescence, thinking I hadn’t ever done enough for wherever I was, knowing I should be doing more for my age and my intellect level. I’ll share a journal entry I came across that I wrote about 5 years ago, expressing similar sentiments to what I’ve started feeling again.

What does the reemergence of my quarter-life crisis have to do with this 30-day writing challenge I tried for the first time? Well, it inspired it.

Though I bought the domain name, aroundLAwithTK dot com, back in November 2019, after brewing on the idea that whole year, I didn’t write my first blog post until the following spring when coronavirus came to change the world in 2020 and I had nothing better to do with Los Angeles on a total shut down.

It was really one of my closest girlfriends, Taylor, that put some fire under my tail. I’d used the hashtag #aroundLAwithTK on my personal Instagram, before creating any blog content, and Taylor got excited. SHE sold me my own idea. “Baby, you is a braaaand! Uhnt uhn, I’m goin’ getcha some hats made,” Taylor said on FaceTime one day. And true to her word, she bought a few hats and paid someone she knew to embroider #aroundLAwithTK across the front, for me to rep my “brand” as I’m out riding my bike aroundLA.

My friend believed in me. That was the push I needed to start.

How could I not do anything when someone I love has invested, their hard-enough money and limited time, into me to do something?!

A common sentiment I’ve heard for motivation is people wanting to prove other people wrong. I’m about to turn up on these haters. People tend to find motivation in doing something for their “haters” (sarcastic quotations here because majority of the time, people’s haters are figments of their imagination). They want to make the people that don’t support them mad. They want to prove the naysayers wrong.

They don’t think I can do it; I’m show them! …Nah.

I want to make the people that do support me proud. I want to prove the yaay-sayers right. I’m not out here looking for haters whose hearts I can break. I suppose I understand how negative energy fuels some people, but that could never fill my tank. On the rare occasion I notice someone that doubts me, that stimulates me much less than someone believing in me.

My girl saw the vision and it got me going to make it happen.

So… then what happened?

I fell off.

I’d write a post here, then a post there, then 3 months of no blogging activity later, I’d do a couple more posts. And that cycle continued.

If I’d’ve really put the work in and stayed consistent when I started 2 years 8 months and 19 days ago, I could’ve been paying my rent with blog revenue by now. Better yet, my blog could’ve afforded me a place I like more. But nooooooo, my raggedy behind had to be playing ‘round. Now I look up, years later, I’m older and not wiser with nothing to show for myself at my big age. I know I’m speaking pretty harshly of myself right now, but dang! I frustrate myself.

This can’t happen again.

T.K., Te’Keya Krystal, ma’am. You have to get it tf together. Play time is over.

Going into my last birthday, I told myself I have to make some SERIOUS progress before my next. I got back on it, putting more effort into my personal blog than I had previously, but I mean, improving from nothing didn’t take much.

Boom! Almost half of my last year to make something of myself was gone in the blink of an eye.

And that’s what led me to trying a 30-day writing challenge for the first time.

I needed another push.

This time it was up to me to find a way to push myself and stop waiting for it to fall out of the sky. Ain’t no more waiting to be moved to write, to feel like writing. Get your tail up every day and write, I don’t care if you don’t feel like it or not!! I decided the most tactical way to approach this new goal (with my horrendous track record) was a 30-day writing challenge.

Being the extreme person I am, I decided I’d take a month off from working to focus completely on writing. I also decided it would be best to step away from running aroundLA during this time, and ‘bout thee only way for me to resist L.A. streets, is for me to not be in L.A. at all. I hopped on an Amtrak headed South. That 48-hour ride sitting upright in a train seat was a great way to get it started.

Here’s what I got done during my first time trying a 30-day writing challenge.

Being that, in the going on 3 years of having this personal blog, I may have only had a total of 30 blog posts on the entire website, I was pretty geeked about getting (almost) 30 blog posts up in 30 days. Feel free to click on any title that catches your attention.

Whew, a lil’ rocky towards the end, ain’t it?!

See, what had happened was…

Black people say that when folks are getting ready to tell a lie or give an excuse, they start it off “what had happened was…”

I’m not going to tell you all any lies, nor give any excuses, I just ain’t do ‘em those days. It’s not as if I was too busy, I told you I wasn’t working thee entire month. There’s really no excuse, only shame. [lowers head] I’ll do better the next time I give myself a 30-day writing challenge.

What is a 30-day writing challenge?

A 30-day writing challenge is a goal to write daily over the course of a month.

There are no strict rules, other than writing every single day.

The details to the 30-day writing challenge can be decided by the individual. Do you want to write a certain number of words each day? Do you want to write for a certain amount of time each day?

I don’t have MicrosoftWord on this Chrombook I bought for blogging (hm, maybe I should get that), and Squarespace doesn’t have a word-count feature, so I never really know how many words I’ve written. I don’t necessarily care about reaching a certain number of words each day.

For me, the 30-day writing challenge was about getting in the habit of writing daily. And, I had a side hope of learning to write blog posts more quickly, to be able to get more done.

30 minutes per day for 30 days has a nice sound to it, so I went with that for my writing challenge. Most days, as I often mention in the posts, went waaaaaaaay over 30 minutes of writing. On those, it was more important to me to get my complete thought out than it was to beat the clock.

Is a 30-day writing challenge helpful?

Yes, a 30-day writing challenge is very helpful. Not only does it give you blog content ideas, it also gives you structure.

The 30-day writing challenge I chose gave me a numbered list of writing prompts. Each day, when I opened up my computer, I knew what I was writing. I knew what I had to write.

I’ve written a list of blog topic ideas for my website and never doubled-back to actually write the post. It’s different when it’s a set list from someone else. There’s no decision-making needed, no excuse to procrastinate because you can’t decide. Then the “challenge” aspect makes it feel like a game, in a way, and you’re trying to win.

Who should do a 30-day writing challenge?

You! You should do a 30-day writing challenge no matter if you’re a stay-at-home mom, a marketing executive, an actress, or a retired hopscotch star. It doesn’t matter who you are, a 30-day writing challenge can be beneficial for you.

If you’re not trying to make a profession out of writing, you definitely don’t need to be as intense with your challenge as I was with mine. It definitely doesn’t have to go up on the Internet for the world to see (or ignore). And you don’t have to dedicate a lot of your time. Your writing challenge can be to write every morning for 5 minutes before breakfast to get your day off to a peaceful yet productive start. It can be whatever you want it to be. It’s yours, and it can benefit you in ways you won’t know until you try it.

What are the benefits of a 30-day writing challenge?

habit-forming
consistency-building
communication skills exercising
introspection / self-reflection
visits to memory lane
clarity
focus
structure
organization
feelings of accomplishment

These are some of the positive benefits I experienced while trying a 30-day writing challenge for the first time. If/when you give it a go, you may experience something else that’s not on this list.

It allows you to open you up, if you let you.

In addition to tactical skills in writing, it was very good for me emotionally, therapeutic, in a sense.

Okay, I think you all get it.

A 30-day writing challenge could be good for you, whomever you are.

I enjoyed doing a 30-day writing challenge, and look forward to the benefits I experienced being ongoing parts of me as a person and as a writer. I’ll definitely do another 30-day writing challenge, and 10 out of 10 recommended (even if you’re only writing enough each day to barely fill a sticky note).

I’d love to give an extended summary, but if you don’t at this point, I’ll have to help you another day because now it’s after 2 o’clock in the morning and your girl slowly losing this fight to keep my eyelids up.

Thank you for being here, riders. Please, share this with someone today. I’ll talk to y’all later!

Oh, side note, shout out to the nursing student, Melany, who blogs in her leisure; I found the list of writing prompts blog graphic from her blog. You can check hers out here.

Okay, goodnight, fr fr.