on life, ambitions, and dreams

Remember that Time I Blogged Every Day for A Month

Printing press typsetting letters that spell blogging

Back in October 2010, a friend dared me to blog every single day. Friends like that who know how to motivate you the right way are priceless. That November and the following November, I cranked out 60 blog posts and put my blogging stats in a healthy upswing. That experiment led to a talk that inspired even more people to set out on their own 30-day blogging challenge.

Then the fall of 2012 rolled around. I started a very awesome and intense job (that has yet to be blogged about) and I stopped blogging. Last year I knew that I didn’t have the capacity to blog every day and I let NaBloPoMo pass. Then, this year rolled around and a blogging friend posted in a Facebook group that she was looking for her National Blog Posting Month blogging buddy. I jumped on it.

Yes, I will be your blogging buddy.

(Hat tip: blogging buddies are crucial for ensuring success.)

Then, the Patron Saint of Realism on my left shoulder spoke up, “Yeah right, Laura, you barely have time to make yourself dinner.”

And the Patron Saint of Opportunity on my right shoulder countered: “You can change how you write, how you blog. You won’t write about life or epic blog posts. Keep it to one paragraph responses about things you read, thoughts you have. Don’t synthesize or analyze. Report. Blog from my phone. Post photos. The way you blog — and can blog — has changed since two years ago.”

And the Realist shit on that response: “So, you’re going to blog for the sake of blogging instead of blogging to write about what really matters? Yeah, that’ll make you happy…”

She had a point. 

Plus the fact that I was misleading my blogging buddy — and yet I wasn’t — because I was too busy flip-flopping to come to a decision.

October 30th rolled around. Two days before this blogging venture was going to begin. And I backed out. My reason? I honestly don’t have four hours of my life that I can devote to writing, editing, staging, and publishing a blog post every day, for the next thirty days. My life is awesome, but my schedule is chaotic. And adding blogging to the mix is setting myself up for having more on my plate than I can handle. And not fulfilling my own expectations or that of others breaks my heart.

But story doesn’t end there.

After backing out from the challenge, defeated, my blogging buddy responded: “Okay, if you can’t blog, then you can help me by sending me blog prompts every day.”

Yeah…yeah! I can totally do that.

Then we worked out a plan: which topics she likes to write about, which ones to avoid, when I’d send her the prompts, and how.

And the first prompt would be delivered on Friday night, November 1st to write about the following day. And before day 1 began, a second blogger joined our group texts. By day day 5, a third blogger joined our group.

Some of them are following the blog prompts verbatim. Some are using the prompts when they need the inspiration. And it’s turned into this small ecosystem of creativity and support. It’s amazing and I can’t wait to see how the next 23 days go!

The bloggers are: Harmony of Harmonious Mess, Madeline of Edible Joy, and Berrak of The World Is My Jester.

Each night between 8pm and 10pm (usually 9:30ish), I text the bloggers a prompt for the following day. And they’re producing some really great, amazing posts. Since I’m helping them, I want to help you too.

After publishing this post, I’m going to share the prompts here in one post to catch up for the last week then every night, I’ll post the next one. If you’re looking for inspiration, go for it! I just ask that you give a small mention or link to where you found the post in your prompt.

Happy writing!

Photo Credit: The Shopping Sherpa

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4 Responses

  1. With you, Harmony, and Berrak, NaBloPoMo feels like a collaborative group process, instead of a lonely exercise in extreme writing. Thanks!

  2. So awesome that you’re doing this to support others, even though you can’t blog every day this time around. I look forward to seeing the prompts!

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