My 30 day women in sport writing challenge
Can I write and publish an article every weekday for the next 6 weeks?
I get called a writer all the time but I struggle with accepting that label. Oh, I do write, it’s like pulling teeth for me but something I’ve discovered from reading a lot of ‘how to write’ type posts is, that’s a pretty common feeling.
What I don’t have, is a writing practice. Not really. For the last 2 years, I’ve been writing for 15 minutes every morning mostly just any old rubbish that comes to my mind. It helps me clear my head before getting stuck into my day. But I don’t produce anything from this. It’s time to step it up to the next level.
I want to get into a regular rhythm. I’ve also realised there’s a lot of knowledge about women in sport in Australia rolling around in my brain and it would be good to get it out there. There’s half formed ideas and problems I reckon could be helped, by you, if only I shared them.
I also need to be held accountable. So, rather than make a private promise to myself, I’m putting it out there. A little extra incentive to keep going if I know you are watching.
Rules, what rules?
For any creative endeavour, I find restrictions are mostly a positive thing. They can lead to solving problems in ways you might not have thought of if you’d had a free reign.
These are the rules I’ve set down for myself:
No research — this might seem like a stupid one but the goal for me here is to WRITE not READ. I know what I’m like, I get so caught up in following an idea that I fall down a rabbit hole in the name of ‘research’ and I end up getting off track and about 98% of the time, not write anything at all. Having said that, I will allow myself to ask questions of experts via twitter.
Length — 300–500 words.
Time taken — no more than 30 minutes.
What am I going to write about?
The board topic is women in sport with an Australian focus. It will mostly be opinion (see lack of research above) but I may expand it out on occasion if something takes my fancy. I’m sure I’ll touch on inclusion in sport, especially for LGBTIQ folk and I’ll be open to talking about anything topical in the media.
I’m open to suggestions too.
Thanks to my twitter followers, I have a pretty extensive list to get me going. Here’s some that I am definitely going to cover:
- Future of media coverage of women’s sport. What needs to improve?
- Challenges faced by female fans
- Lack of women in sport leadership
- Pervasive patriarchy in sport reporting
- Setting new enjoyment standards for sport
- Do women in sport need to be more controversial?
- Analysing elite sportswomen’s access to premier stadiums
- Risks associated with professionalism of women’s sport
- Competition for the talent pool of female athletes
- Ticket prices and putting a value on women’s sport
- The marketing of women’s sport and women in sport: beyond the role model narrative
And that’s just the beginning. If you have any suggestions, let me know in the comments.
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