This weekly writing challenge focuses on the “weekly” part — start your post today, and build on it for the next four before publishing. Who knows where you’ll end up?
Let’s think beyond a single post written with a single focus, and lean toward the “weekly” part of “weekly writing challenge”: you’ll start your post today, but revisit and add to it over the next several days. Watch your ideas morph and grow — you may even be surprised where your post ends up, like playing a solo, written game of “Telephone.”
It doesn’t matter if you’re starting this challenge on Monday or not — if you don’t get to it until later in the week, that’s fine. Just do as many of the days as you can, and publish it before the next challenge is posted.
First, the easy part: start a new post about anything you’d like. It can be a post you’ve been thinking about writing for a while or an idea that just came to you — the subject and format is completely up to you.
Start writing. A paragraph or two is fine, but so is a finished post. The catch? Don’t publish it, because you’re not actually done yet. Save your post as a draft.
Now, the “challenge” part of this challenge: every day for the next four days, open your draft and add to/edit what you’ve already written to fold in something new. Here’s your progression:
- Day One: start your post.
- Day Two: add a quote from a conversation you had with someone today (an email, instant message, or text conversation is fine, too).
- Day Three: add something related to what your childhood self wanted to be when you grew up, or a dream you have for your future.
- Day Four: add a reference to something currently in your refrigerator.
- Day Five: add something inspired by a song you heard today. If you didn’t hear any music, use something you read (and turn on the radio!).
After the end of Day Five, give it a final read and polish, then hit “publish” — challenge complete.
You can interpret these four elements literally, and tell us about your Tupperware of leftover meatballs and your shattered four-year-old dream of being an astronaut ballerina fireperson, or you can just pull inspiration from each of them, and work more figurative ideas into your post. It’s not important that we be able to see each of these four elements in your finished post, just that you figure out how to weave them in. The more seamless, the better.
The goal here isn’t for you to totally refocus your post every day — unless that’s what you want to do. It’s to push you to examine how all your ideas (and your life experiences) intersect, and to see what you can learn about yourself and your writing process by actively creating new layers in your post.
Today is your Day One. Ready, set, write.
This challenge sounds very interesting, very different from anything I have ever done before. Somehow excited. 🙂
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Looking forward to taking part in this challenge!
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I am damn excited for this .
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Write but don’t publish yet? Oh, the agony. :p
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Isn’t it somehow terrifying?
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I cannot wait to finish a blog to press Publish, but to wait for several days……I will dream Publish button
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Great idea! 🙂 It is rather strange for me to edit and article over and over again,but I guess it’s never too late! I am deffinitely going to try this out! 🙂
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I love the idea, I wish there were more writing challenges like this one 😀
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Noted!
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Incredible ideas Michelle. Really interesting and I feel like I’m a director of a movie scene 😀 Thanks a lot!
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This sounds like it could be a good challenge. Hopefully I can grab time each day to do this.
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I usually edit and re-edit my posts over several days, so I think today’s challenge is a very good idea.
I’m actually working on a complex post right now, so I think this challenge will help me get the post polished and spot on!
It’s about what makes a book, fascinating, great, ordinary, or not worth reading.
Which objective parameters could be used to help us review, appreciate books, and advise authors on how to improve their work?
Day 1 is done and saved as a draft.
I’ll let you know how I get on tomorrow!
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Wow, sounds great, let’s go for it!
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Holey moley! If this does not push the creative spark, nothing will! I am on it. Day One? No big deal…the subsequent days? OMG!
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Really nice concept, Michelle ! – and a sound challenge. Thinking cap on ! – creativity ho ! 🙂
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Meant to ask: is that header by Norman Rockwell ? – boy, does that take me back to “The Saturday Evening Post” !
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It is indeed!
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Day one. . . complete!
This could be fun 🙂
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This challenge sounds great! It definitely will be unlike anything I’ve previously posted. Excited to see where this takes me. Thanks much.
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Interesting idea, maybe it will work for my needs.
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What I like about this challenge is it gives those of us in an advanced time zone the chance to post early (if we time it right), instead of waking up Tuesday morning to find you’re already going to be 30 posters down the list.
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Like? LOVE!!!
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I just started my blog last week and today I was thinking about what my next post should be about (the possibilites are endless), this sound really interesting to try 🙂
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What a great idea. Forcing everyone to slow down and rewrite before hitting publish.
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its a good idea/….. will try this
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On it.
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This is basically how I write. I know no other way. It takes me months to pull something together. I write a draft and usually sit on it for weeks, if I have the luxury. I am a firm believer in quality content instead of the deluge that besieges us daily rife with typos and subjects that make no sense.
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i love the artwork! norman rockwell?
unique challenge- i’m in!
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Interesting idea…going to try it.
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This sounds like an awesome idea. I will have to do this.
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Oh yeah this is exactly the kind of thing I needed to read! (I mean that with all sincerity, I sometimes come across as sarcastic but not in this instance)
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oh thank you so for your inspiring words and helpful I feel like I’m back in class a writing challenge oh I love it !
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http://teepee12.com/2014/07/22/mystery-ending-because-bank-of-america-cares/
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Glad y’all are liking the idea of this challenge! Look forward to Friday 🙂
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This challenge sounds really nice! I cannot wait to start it and see what I wrote at the end of the week!! 😉
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