5 Tips for Choosing the Best Writing Challenge
How to know which challenge is best for you.
Participating in and completing a writing challenge has a lot of benefits. They challenge your comfort zone, challenging you to write about new topics.
They allow you to learn more about how you approach the process and what you want going forward.
They encourage you to come up with outside-the-box ideas and encourage you to learn more about the craft.
However, there are so many different writing challenges: from 15 or 30-day poetry challenges to 30 article challenges to social media challenges. It’s not always easy to choose the right one that will have the most benefit for you at this point.
Here are a few considerations that will help you if you’re struggling to decide which challenge is right for you.
1. Consider the Why Behind Your Participation
When you have a few different challenge ideas, consider why you want to complete each challenge.
While “to say I can” is a valid excuse, it’s not very strong. Dig deeper. Do you want to reconnect with a specific form of writing? Do you want to find out what appeals most to your audience? Do you want to stretch yourself to make your writing better?
Asking this question will help you to narrow down your options. It will let you see the bigger picture of what each one will entail and the benefit you will receive from completing it. Once selected, this aspect will help you to confirm your commitment.
Knowing your why is important. This is what will keep you going when you want to give up. Write down 1–3 solid reasons why you want this. Keep them at your work desk and somewhere you will see regularly.
2. What Do You Want to Learn?
When taking on a challenge, you both write the material and also research.
The research is done to support your content, learn more about your topic, or study how to write the content better. You may want to consult writing manuals or read about the best way to work with the types of content you’re creating.
What are you interested in? Is it learning new formats? Writing about a specific topic that will lead you to investigate your topic and learn more about it? Are you working on a class and want to use the challenge to implement what you’re learning?
To grow as a writer, you need to have a mindset that never grows tired of learning. What is it that you want to learn or focus on for this set period of time?
3. Which One Suits Your Life Best?
Commitments outside of writing will always be there. If you’re struggling between two or more ideas, consider what else is going on.
An intensive 30 publications- 30 articles in 30 days may not be the best idea when you have a lot of other projects to work on. Likewise, if your schedule is light, it might be the perfect time to prove that you can do it.
A 30-day poetry challenge might be a relaxing activity during a busy month.
Writing short form for 30 days might be a great way to share your ideas on a specific topic and get feedback.
Think about everything that is going on in your life. Think about the commitment of the challenge. Which one makes the most sense?
4. Which One Do You Get the Best Gut Feeling About?
Which challenge do you feel the most strongly about? Which one does your gut resonate with best?
Your gut knows things. It knows how much you’re able to take at that specific time and what you need. Not listening might lead to regret.
You may have very strong feelings about completing a specific challenge. You may not know the reason why, but you can’t shake the feeling that you need to do that challenge at that time.
Deeply consider this feeling. You can always modify your challenge as time allows. If it’s telling you to go for a smaller challenge, you can always write more than one article or post as time allows. Alternately, you can always choose a shorter piece for when you know you don’t have time that day.
What challenge is calling to you?
5. Do You Have an End Goal?
The choice may be obvious when you think about your end goal. For example, Shaunta Grimes has the challenge to blog a book in a month. If you want to create 30 pieces that will eventually become a book, your motivation can lead to a clear decision of the project.
Maybe your end goal is to simply write the number of posts, articles, or poems. Maybe it’s to feel more familiar with the form you are working with.
A more varied challenge might be right for you if you want to try several ideas or publications. When I chose my 30-day challenge, this is what I wanted. I wanted to experiment with topics and I wanted to try a lot of publications before narrowing down the list of where I would be a regular contributor.
What to Do If You Feel You’ve Chosen the Wrong Goal
There are three options to consider if you feel the writing challenge you’ve started is not for you.
The first one is to let the challenge go. It does not make you a failure if you decide something is not right for you. It just means that you tried something and it didn’t work for you. You’ve learned from the experience and can move on to the next goal.
The second is to keep going. To push yourself to the finish line. On the plus side, this encourages discipline and willingness to see something through. On the negative side, it might drain you out.
The third option is to modify. You can always increase the challenge or decrease the requirements. 30-day challenges can go to 15-day challenges or you might decide you want to submit fewer places. A poetry challenge can be modified to use the same prompts for a mixture of short-form and poetry.
However, if you find that the challenge isn’t for you, try to consider why. If nothing else, it will give you information for the next time.
Final Thoughts
The decision and commitment to a writing challenge can be the most difficult but most important part of the process. There are a few ways to decide what the best writing challenge to take on is. Hopefully, these questions give you a clearer picture of what you want to take on for your next challenge.
