I Joined a Daily Blogging Challenge for 31 Days
By: Annie Huang
Tags: Byob, Business, Writing, Blogging, Writing Tips

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. — T.S. Eliot

Early in July, I joined the BYOB (Blog-Your-Own-Book) Challenge hosted by Shaunta Grimes. Unlike most writing challenges, it’s a four-month challenge.



In July we picked a topic for our book and planned out the posts that we were going to write on the topic. August was for writing the actual posts. Yep, all 31 of them.

Now it’s September and we are going to edit our posts. Then we’ll publish them in a book format in October.

Everything sounded great on paper. The trouble is, I’ve never done a challenge like this before.

While I did develop a daily writing habit a couple of years ago when I was writing my first book, I’ve since lost that habit — most likely on the same day that I handed in my final manuscript to my editor.

Oh well.

Since then, I’ve struggled to write regularly. And I’m not talking about writing daily — I’ve been struggling to write even once a week.

Writing brings me a lot of joy — when I eventually get around to doing it. So, I thought this BYOB challenge would be a great kick up my butt to get me back into daily writing.

Since I’m a new blogger, I had a very modest goal and I just wanted to finish 31 posts in August. Everything else was a bonus. Here’s what happened.

What Went Well

I finished writing all 31 posts.

Yay me! However, only 27 of them got published. I had submitted some pieces to big publications and they didn’t get published by the end of August.

I increased my curation rate from 50% to 67%.

In July I only published 8 pieces and 4 of them got curated, so that’s a 50% curation rate. In August, 18 of my 27 published pieces got curated, and my calculator informs me that it’s a 67% curation rate.

I honestly thought my curation rate would go down because of the increased volume of my writing, but apparently the curators liked my stuff more, not less.

I started my own publication and I got into 6 new publications.

I started my own pub Thrive Now, and got into a few big publications. I also got into some smaller but really cool ones that I’ve had my eye on ever since I joined Medium.

They included: The Startup, The Writing Cooperative, P.S. I Love You, Invisible Illness, An Injustice! and Home Sweet Home. Now I have more “homes” for my new pieces.

I wrote faster.

I’m a painfully slow writer. It takes me on average 3 hours to write a 1200-word blog post. But my saving grace is my focus. If and when I choose to use my superpower, I can focus for hours on end and get into a flow state pretty easily.

As a result of the challenge, I’m writing slightly faster now, so maybe 2.5 hours per post instead of 3. It’s still slow I know, but it’s progress!

I wrote every day. And I still do.

This is the biggest win of all. I wanted to form a daily habit, and now I have it.

What’s more, I thought I would be so sick of writing by the end of August and probably need to take time off to recover from all the stress. But so far that hasn’t happened and I’m still writing every day.

What Didn’t Go So Well

I didn’t write “on topic” all the time.

Yes, we were supposed to come up with a topic during our planning process and plan our posts around it. I did, but I didn’t follow my plan.

My topic was perfectionism and I probably wrote 2/3 of my posts on that topic, while the rest of my posts were all over the place, ranging from relationships and parenting to gender equality and a couple of really left-field ones.

I didn’t publish all 31 posts.

The perfectionist in me didn’t like that. I wanted to write and publish 31 posts, damn it! But the reality was once I submitted my piece to a publication, I had no control over how long it would take for them to publish it. Oh well.

I became slightly obsessed.

I became a little obsessed with writing as a result of the challenge. I went to bed thinking about writing and woke up thinking about it, too. Some days I woke up in the middle of the night because I had just thought of a better phrase, subhead, or quote for one of my pieces.

And depending on how late it was in the night, a few times I actually got out of bed, went downstairs to my computer, and made the changes right away!

I got into trouble with my husband (well, a little).

In my early days of building my coaching business, I often worked right through lunchtime and ended up getting into trouble with my husband. One of his frequent questions was, “Did you eat today?”

I’ve since learned to put in strict boundaries around my work hours, and I only work on weekdays now. Because of the challenge, however, I ended up writing on weekends too.

My husband complained that I was working harder than him (I’m a working mum — of course I work harder than him even before the challenge. But don’t tell him that), and he was feeling neglected.

Should You Join a Daily Writing Challenge?

Fortune favours the brave. — Virgil

I think so, especially if you’re a new writer or blogger like me. You’re probably trying to find a writing rhythm that works for you, and writing every day for 30 (or 31) days is a great way to do that.

However, what really made it work for me was that I made a commitment to the challenge. And that means two things: time and accountability.

The Two Keys to Commitment

I set aside two- to three-hour blocks of time every day either first thing in the morning, or first thing after lunch to write. I put my 3-year-old toddler in front of the TV with her favorite show, loaded up her food supply, and off I went.

Child neglect? Maybe. But I made up for it by spending quality time with her before and after my writing time.

I also did extra writing on the two days that she went to daycare, and on weekends when my husband was around to help out. The other three days of the week I just did the minimum to get my writing done. So, that meant shorter or less in-depth pieces. It wasn’t perfect, but I was okay with it.

In terms of accountability, I joined a wonderful writing group and we had regular write-in sessions on Zoom where people just showed up for two hours and wrote.

It was so helpful to have that level of accountability, and I only missed a few of those sessions during the month. As a newbie, I needed all the help I could get!

Give it a try

I’m only halfway through the BYOB Challenge, but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that you try a daily writing challenge.

And if you want to increase your success rate, make sure you set aside time and have some accountability in place.

Whatever happens, you’ll learn something incredibly valuable about yourself, your writing process, and your readers. And that’s priceless.

Everything else — increasing your curation rate, doubling your followers, or getting amazing feedback — will be a sweet bonus.