Day 7 of 7 - The End?

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6 years ago

To quote one of my favorite movies "Game over, man. Game over!". Is this the end for my writing, not by a long shot. I accepted a seven-day writing challenge, and I was determined to see it through to the end. Sure there were some days that I was thinking I wasn't going to write. Two of the days I even wrote really late at night, almost falling asleep at my computer. But I took a challenge and I was going to see it through.

Plus I didn't want to look bad to the others that took the challenge as well!!

Writing Challenges

I never thought of myself as a good writer. Back in high school, I was terrible at it. Thinking back it is probably because I did not care so much back then. Wasn't till years later when I went to college that I started developing my writing skills.

First lesson I learned was taking a point or a fact, and then elaborating on it for 2-3 sentences. That would basically become a paragraph for me. It was a simple method, but it worked in the beginning.

But it wasn't until I wrote a paper for my Philosophy class that I really found my best skill. I was going through a tough period when I was writing that paper and decided to drink some red wine before, and while, writing it. Well I drank a lot and pretty much just wrote whatever was coming to mind. Just throwing it all out there.

When I finished writing, I went back to do my editing. Thank you for the grammar checker at that time. Can't remember how many spelling mistakes there were. But in my mind, this paper was the least of my worries and felt like I didn't care how it looked. Just wanted to get it done so I could go back to wallowing in a bottle of red wine.

So I handed submitted it in online. Now for the waiting game for my grade.

A few days later I see that the instructor graded the paper. I got 100% on it. Not only that, she left me some feedback. She thought the paper was well-thought-out and she enjoyed how I presented my ideas. What ideas? I don't remember having any ideas!

So I had to go back and read what I wrote, and it did look pretty good!

Now my best skill is not drinking wine before writing. Maybe after. But I learned to just write what was on my mind. Just let it out. I also learned to write like I am talking to someone. Not sure how that helped, but grade wise it served me well. So from then on out, that is basically how I write.

A Time for Writing

I enjoyed doing a 7 day challenge and I think that once a month you should try to write each day for a week straight. And I am not talking about writing content for your site either. That's bonus writing! But just writing whatever is on your mind at the time, or whatever you want to talk to the community about. Just write.

Until I began writing for my site, my writing after college has mostly been emails for business. Getting back into writing a lot of content again was a challenge at first, but I am beginning to come back into my zone. Challenges like this help keep you sharp and can help you with your creative writing skills.

Now that the challenge is over, will I stop writing blogs every day? For the next few days, I may take a breather as I begin a new job on Monday. But I enjoyed writing about what was on the top of my head this week and not just my site content. So I encourage you all to try to accept a writing challenge, or just try to challenge yourself. You will see how well your writing improves.

Till next time! Best of luck to you all!

Chris