Why Do You Write? A Challenge!
Hello everyone! Today I’m am going a little off the mark and share something I feel is important for writers to do from time to time. Let’s begin with a few simple (or not-so simple) questions.
Why do you write? Why do you put words on paper? Why do you read/research material and manipulate the words to make them your own? Why do you make up stories and tell the world about people and situations that aren’t real? Is it esteem, prestige, passion, the mental connection of the word ‘writer’? Are you writing your passion or feel stuck in a rut writing material that doesn’t appeal to you and need to take some time to just write something you want to write?
I often feel this way because I’m not working on any fiction. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing articles and the research that goes into it, but I do miss writing both. I actually feel my writing has suffered because I’m not writing both. Fiction is a whole different ballgame than non-fiction. But I believe if a writer works in both areas, fiction and non-fiction, they are more well-rounded as a writer.
Milli Thornton, author of “Fear of Writing”, has put forth a challenge for all writers-whether you’ve lost your passion or you just want to challenge yourself. June 18 is 10K Day for Writers. You are not required to write 10,000 words, but you are to challenge yourself to see if you can reach that mark in one day.
I would like to invite everyone to take the challenge. If you can’t make it on June 18, set aside a later date and take this challenge for yourself. This is a chance to get back in touch with your passion, to travel off into new areas of writing, or just have fun with a challenge. It could be the perfect opportunity to remind yourself of why you write, why you want to be called a writer, or like I said, it could just be fun and a way to push yourself to a limit you might not otherwise.
I think, as writers, we get to a comfortable level and forget to push ourselves past that level. We forget to challenge ourselves or even tackle a whole new genre of writing. To truly hone the craft of writing I believe we need challenges, we need to step out of our comfort zone and try something completely new and different. I challenge you to visit Milli’s blog and sign up. Let’s take this challenge to remember why we write, where we want to take our writing, and have fun doing it.
I realize this is late notice; I only discovered this yesterday myself, but I believe it will be an awesome journey for every writer who steps up and gives it their best. Spend the day writing about something other than gadgets and widgets, or ballgames, or whatever your area of writing pertains to. Step away from Email, Twitter and other social networks and just spend the day as a writer, doing the thing you love to do.
Again, if you can’t make the challenge tomorrow, please set aside a date that you can challenge yourself and keep us all posted.
Have fun, remember your passion and push yourself to the limit. You’ll be glad you did!
Written by Patti Stafford from Patti StaffordPosted on June 17th, 2009 and filed under Writing
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5 Responses to “Why Do You Write? A Challenge!”
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Thank you, Patti! Your passion and sincerity brought tears to my eyes!
I can feel your love of writing coming through–and your desire to help other writers reconnect with that. I always feel a great deal of positive emotion when I read your writing and this was no exception.
Good luck with your own writing tomorrow on the 10K Day. I believe the event will be enriched by your participation!
I write because I have ideas that I want to share with people, but to write 10,000 words in one day might be too challenging for me!
If the word count wasn’t set that high it wouldn’t be considered a challenge. And you can write as many topics as you want, it doesn’t have to be fiction. I’m so out of tune with fiction that the challenge for me will to get anything written, but I’ve devoted the day to fiction because I miss it.
If I were writing articles today that number would be easier. I generally write between 2k-3k words a day on a very easy schedule (before noon), so 10k for articles could be attained relatively easy.
The main thing is to have fun and write for the sheer passion of writing. Today, I will not write to be informative but to reignite my passion for the written word. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or not, the point is to just get the words out.
I hope you take the challenge and enjoy yourself.
I think challenges are great tools to help creative types break through or into new levels that may be outside your normal comfort zones.
While I only write weekly articles about my photos , this is the 2nd year I am participating in the SOFOBoMo (Solo F(ph)oto Book Month) challenge. To produce a photographic book with text that contains a minimum of 35 images of your own and the whole effort needs to be completed within a month.
Form these challenges I have learned a little about book layouts, telling a story and try to link images to the same story.
This experience a lead to re-think how I undertake projects.
Challenges can be fun and stressful but I fin the important item is to not worry that your effort is not the best of the group but the best you can do and have fun. There is not right or wrong solutions only what you enjoy.
Niels Henriksen
I like a lot of times when people write, it is for a different motive than just a release. Blogs and twitter have turned into a marketing tool- which I’m not sure is a good or bad thing. A pro is that it elevates the quality of content out there. People are expected to put time and effort into a piece otherwise facing the criticism of readers everywhere. A con could be that I rarely come across pieces that are inspiring anymore- they get lost in the sea of content.
The one thing that keeps me writing everyday is my the people that read my blog- you better believe if I don’t stay on it, I get emails and phone calls wondering where I’ve been!
Congrats on completing the contest!