Writing
One Week In, I Plan On Continuing.
A 500 Day Challenge?
I have written a post every day since May 1 for medium. I have enjoyed it so far. I plan on doing this until Sept. 13… 2022. That’s right. 500 days, 500 articles.
THE WHY
So Dr Mehmet Yildiz, the head editor at Illumination, gave out a challenge for 100 posts in 100 days, I thought of doing it, but first I required some experience. I gave myself this week to figure out if I really wanted to participate. I put in the work, it turns out I really love writing(I already knew it, but you get what I mean). I wrote 10 articles in the last 8 days, this being the 11th. You might see that I have only published 6 (at the time of writing). That is because 4 of them are stuck in publications. I am on track (for now).
This is alright, but why 500? 500 days conveniently are very huge. I just hate myself, that is the true reason. On a serious note, I just felt that I needed to do something extraordinary in order to truly get to know this platform and the readers. That’s that.
THE WHAT
It’s pretty clear, isn’t it? 500 days, 500 posts. That is, on the surface. I plan on doing several medium experiments that I found interesting and noteworthy. One of them is submitting to niche publications, and I’d love to, but I can’t find any publications dealing with literature (analysis and philosophy of literature, not book reviews or short stories). If there are any you know, let me know in the comments.
Anyway, not to give anything away (as if I have thought anything), let us move on to the most interesting part.
THE GOALS
The juicy stuff is here, right? Well, depends. I am not a part of the Medium Partner Program so I don’t make money here, if you thought that would be one of the goals, it is not. To those who are energised by growth and appreciation, it is juicy here.
I have decided on three checkpoints. The month of June(2021), the month of January(2022) and 13th August to 13th September(2022). There will be a post like this one at the endpoints of all three checkpoints, analysing my goals and the reality, along with my thoughts on this challenge. Answering these four questions-
- Are you still enthusiastic about every post you write?
- Are you making progress in achieving the aims you mentioned? (Aims in the end)
- Are you satisfied with your growth since the start of your challenge?
- If it wasn’t a challenge, would you have continued to write daily, or at all?
The goals-
These goals ensure both better engagement and better read ratio, which I have read actually decreases. But, always aim high. Speaking of aiming high, by the end of these 500 days, I also aim to be published in Feedium, Publishous, The Writing Co-operative and Festival Peak. Also, apparent by the publications I mentioned, I will also try out different genres and find something other than literature that I love writing about when I am not writing about literature.
Also, don’t laugh at how minimal my targets are, you gotta start somewhere, and I am starting today. The reasons for my checkpoints are that my birthday is in June, 1st February will mark my 1 year on medium and 15th August to September are my last thirty days in the challenge.
My aims-
- To get better as a writer. That is the most important aim for me, because Medium isn’t a thing that I would do, in an ideal world, forever. I want to be a writer who is respected for language equally, if not more than for the plot.
- To manage my time better. There will always be days when there is absolutely no way of squeezing in an hour or two of writing, but I will have to, and it will definitely help me improve my time management skills.
- To enjoy the process of writing and be able to write an article from start to finish in one sitting. This is really hard, even if you love writing. I rarely, if ever, complete an article in one sitting. I would like to bring a change to that.
Anyway, that is almost everything I wanted to say. And, if possible, join the challenge! I would love somebody to accompany me!
That’s it then!
