Day Fifteen of My500Words
Day Fifteen of My 500 Words: Evaulate
It is day 15, which, if I was actually writing every day the way I should be (oops!) would mean that I am half-way through the challenge.
Today's challenge is to evaluate and write about how I feel about the challenge so far.
With the usual disclaimer that the point of these daily challenges is to write freely and to flow creatively without self censure, without pausing to check grammar, spelling or punctuation. So there may be horrific examples of both.
With the usual disclaimer that the point of these daily challenges is to write freely and to flow creatively without self censure, without pausing to check grammar, spelling or punctuation. So there may be horrific examples of both.
I haven't really been much of a fan of the challenges up to this point. I've found many of the topics uninspiring. Which is one of the reasons it's taking me so long to get through the 30 days in it's entirety. I am determined to finish the challenge though. I am stubborn resolutely purposeful like that. It's frustrating because, given an imaginative prompt or writing game, I become very motivated and have, in the past, surprised myself with what has emerged from my head and onto the page.
I still think that the 30 day challenge is a good idea though. I just find the themes to be too restrictive. That may be my own interpretation of the whole task. My perception is that these tasks are designed to create singular, factual blog posts. But for me, writing every day is about generating ideas, for bringing together multiple ideas and concepts that might be totally new to me, and then mixing them around in my head for a bit, poking them with a stick and seeing what falls out at the end.
When I read that the previous post was going to be about "food". My stomach dropped. I was disappointed. Irritable that I was going to have to do it. I didn't know or care about what I was going to write about. If I wanted to waffle on about food, I would take photographs of what I was about to eat and post them onto Instagram. As a result, my lack of enthusiasm meant that it took me a long time to write the post for day fourteen. It was a struggle and I neither enjoyed the process or the finished result. It doesn't feel as if I am 'creating' when I complete these tasks. It feels as if I am writing to cover the whiteness in print. To reach the quota of words to fulfil the requirements of the task.
A task that is a small drip that will be lost in an ocean of other pointless words, never to be read again.
In essence it feels just like it did working in a corporate office as a temp all over again, grinding through the pointless, uncreative, repetitive tasks and making no difference to the scheme of things. Cutting and pasting. Scrolling. Watching the clock. Counting the minutes tick away until it is time to escape the open-plan incarnation of Hades.
I love the spontaneity of free writing. Of taking an idea, injecting it with risk and running with it in any direction that I choose, no matter how unlikely or outlandish the results might be. I like a piece of writing to end so that, even I, as the writer, is
compelled to want to find out what happens
next. That's where the stories begin.
Word count = 513
I still think that the 30 day challenge is a good idea though. I just find the themes to be too restrictive. That may be my own interpretation of the whole task. My perception is that these tasks are designed to create singular, factual blog posts. But for me, writing every day is about generating ideas, for bringing together multiple ideas and concepts that might be totally new to me, and then mixing them around in my head for a bit, poking them with a stick and seeing what falls out at the end.
When I read that the previous post was going to be about "food". My stomach dropped. I was disappointed. Irritable that I was going to have to do it. I didn't know or care about what I was going to write about. If I wanted to waffle on about food, I would take photographs of what I was about to eat and post them onto Instagram. As a result, my lack of enthusiasm meant that it took me a long time to write the post for day fourteen. It was a struggle and I neither enjoyed the process or the finished result. It doesn't feel as if I am 'creating' when I complete these tasks. It feels as if I am writing to cover the whiteness in print. To reach the quota of words to fulfil the requirements of the task.
In essence it feels just like it did working in a corporate office as a temp all over again, grinding through the pointless, uncreative, repetitive tasks and making no difference to the scheme of things. Cutting and pasting. Scrolling. Watching the clock. Counting the minutes tick away until it is time to escape the open-plan incarnation of Hades.
compelled to want to find out what happens
next. That's where the stories begin.
Word count = 513
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