I Completed My 30-Day Writing Challenge.
By: Charlotte Allison
Tags: Writing, Self Improvement, Editing, Challenge, Writing Tips

Here’s what I learned along the way.

30 Posts in 30 Days

I did it!

I wrote and published 30 posts in 30 days!

At the beginning of November, I set a challenge for myself to write and publish 30 posts in 30 days.

It wasn’t easy. There were many times when I thought I wasn’t going to make it. Or I wasn’t going to be able to come up with an idea to write about. There were times when I was ready to throw in the towel.

It also wasn’t easy because I only had myself to hold accountable. It’s not like this was required for a course or a job. I just set the challenge for myself to see what difference it would make.

I’ve noticed my writing and editing skills have improved since I started this 30-day journey. I have also become faster at typing.

I usually write my posts in Microsoft Word before posting them on Medium. That way I have all my writing on my own computer and in my own files.

Word has its own built-in editor. It not only tracks misspelled words, but also tracks for clarity, consciousness, and redundant phrases.

I have become better at editing due to writing every day. When word underlines a phrase in blue, I now know how to correct it myself without using the editor to check it for me. I correct it myself and the blue line goes away. That’s how I know the phrase is better than the one I had originally written.

Occasionally I will still leave in words for emphasis that Word usually like to weed out. The words very and actually for example. Word usually suggests leaving these words out. Sometimes I go with the suggestion. But other times I feel I need to keep it in to emphasize a point.

Publishing every day has made me less afraid of hitting publish. I used to have a lot of trepidation about hitting the publish button. But with the 30-day challenge I have become a lot less afraid.

I have also become better at coming up with material for writing. At times when I was really stuck for ideas, I would repurpose some other material I wrote previously. I would write and repurpose material that I wrote for my master’s thesis for instance.

You usually can’t just write it exactly how you originally wrote the paper. There is always some editing you must do to fit the platform you are writing for.

My inner critic was on me a lot of the time. Going on about how this didn’t really count because it was repurposed material.

One of the most valuable things this 30-day challenge has taught me is how to bypass in inner critic. When you know you need to post every day, you move past your inner critic and just write.

That doesn’t mean the inner critic doesn’t try hard. Because it does. It’s just when you have a goal and you want to meet that goal, you go ahead despite what the inner critic is saying.

This 30-day challenge has overall made me more efficient at getting my writing done and doing all the tasks involved with it.

For instance, I don’t fuss as much as I used to over titles and photos. I always got stuck when it came to titling my posts before. I didn’t know if it was a good enough title or not. And I would spend a lot of time on it. It would drive me crazy.

The same with a photo for my posts. I would spend a lot of time searching for the perfect photo for my post. It drove me crazy. I would have a headache by the time I settled on the ‘perfect’ photo and title for my post.

I still take some time to carefully think of a title and pick a photo. But I don’t obsess about like I used to. I’m not driving myself nuts with it. It doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect. It just needs to get done.

I like the results of my 30-day challenge. I plan on giving myself more writing challenges. I suppose the more I write and publish, the better I will become.

My next challenge?

I don’t know. I thought about perhaps writing two posts a day. But I don’t know yet if I can pull that off.

But I did complete my 30-day challenge. So, maybe I’ll go for it.