The Wall of Shame

This month’s 12er challenge was to write 750 words a day at 750words.com. I’d seen the site a while back and never tried using it. I write almost every day and over the course of the day I certainly compose more than 750 words, but I’ve never tried to adopt the practice of “morning pages.” So, I decided to do it as April’s 12er – and I enjoyed it very much.

April was the best 12er month yet. Not in terms of my commitment. That honor goes to January. To date, I have stuck to my January goal every day except for February 1st. In April, I missed four days. I’m not sure, but I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I’ve always wanted to write a substantial amount every single day and for the first 25 days of April, I did that – and now I know I can do it every day.

It was very valuable long term. About halfway through the month, I wrote this as part of my entry for the day.

I’m finding this 750 words thing very valuable. I am not sure how happy I am with the exporting of ideas thing, but I like the exercise of writing^*. I have found, though, that I find myself looking for ways to pad my writing, which is the exact opposite of the way I’ve always learned to write. On the one hand, I love the ” just write it down and think about it later approach ” ( I’ve always tried to write like that anyway ) . On the other, I find myself writing more ” on purpose ” which is , I think , a very bad habit. I also find myself thinking of ways to cheat too much – like surrounding punctuation marks , with spaces so they count as a word . ( see how I am doing it here ) . and that is another trick – not using contractions. I tend to use contractions when they are natural, but I think I normally use fewer than most writers ( I do not know , how would I know ), but I find myself deciding not to use them here because they only count as one word ( unless of course , I add spaces – then they count as three .

Seems like a lot of smiley in there, but they counted as one word each.

It was a great month. I loved every minute of it – except for Friday morning when I woke up and realized I had not written on Thursday. I was so disappointed I missed the next three days.

In addition to the positive of keeping up with the 12er, there is a lot about the website I really like. I signed up for the monthly challenge in April, so now my name is on the Wall of Shame until I successfully do a whole month. I’m not sure that motivates anyone else, but it does me.

I also love the badges. They are interesting enough to have got my attention. I plan to earn all of them.

Actually, I am so keen on getting some of the badges that it almost caused a fight with my wife. She called one day just as I had started the writing. It was incredibly frustrating because I was not going for the before 9a.m. badge so I could have written any time. As a matter of fact , I had thought about it a couple of times, and then decided against it. Then I started – and she called. Long story – but she understood what I was trying to do. No big deal , crisis averted , writing done – no distractions ( or none longer than 3 minutes anyway ).

Finally, I thoroughly enjoy the emphasis on stats and metadata. The site analyzes your use of words, mood, etc. It’s a real blast. Highly recommended.

I did write this post yesterday, but I used 750words.com to write the first draft – so it’s not cheating. Is it?

* I use the sites export feature at the end of the month to save my writing. I also had planned to export every Monday and peruse the last week’s entries for ideas for my blog. This sentence was me wondering out loud if I liked that idea. In the end I did not. I’ve already found a more efficient way to harness the ideas.