The month is now complete. Whether you stopped in a few times or a bunch of times or every single day, I'd love to hear how you did, overall, and especially what you learned about your own process by either writing more or logging your writing and thinking-about-writing life more.
Feel free to be honest--if taking part didn't make a difference for you, that's completely fine to say-- and use this space to chat with your peers.
Thanks for participating, stay in touch, and I wish you all a great fall!
Andromeda, thank you for this opportunity. It was great catching glimpses of what everyone in the blog was up to. Teresa and Ben, it was good to 'see' your voices once again. Now to warm up for NanoWriMo. My best to each of you. Peace Out --
ReplyDeletejonna
Logging time and word count was interesting but I kind of already did that, to a degree. For instance, prior to this, I'd set daily goals usually by word count and work to that. However, I don't think I've written for thirty days continuously and found it to sometimes be more difficult than I expected. More of a chore sometimes. I don't know.
ReplyDeleteI found the pressure of knowing I'd have to log my writing for the world (or, you know, you guys) to see really helpful in making me do some writing every day. There were definitely some days when I would not have written had it not been for this challenge.
ReplyDeleteAs a poet, the logging of time turned out to be really useful in helping me feel like I'd actually accomplished something and really worked on writing, even if the word count (especially with revisions) is always small and it doesn't look like much.
I think I'll keep logging my time spent writing to see if it has the same effect when not shared publicly.
So hard saying goodbye! :) Really though, thank you Andromeda for giving us this platform for logging our writing. It was a big help to me as I've felt a little unfocused since finishing up the MFA. That little bit of accountability kept me going, and I think I will try logging on my own for a while.
ReplyDeleteI had a similar experience as Andrea, in that I realized that I do more writing related things than I give myself credit for sometimes. Of course words on the page are good, but there is more to it than that.
I also enjoyed the contact with all of y'all. And yes, Jonna, great to be in touch again. Best of luck to you all!
I Worte more than I would have without this place to post my progress publicly. I also paid more attention to time spent writing. I started to feel that time as valid writing work whether it resulted in words or not. It was great to see all of your working styles. I feel more freedom to change my work habits now.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Cheers,
Ben
Andromeda, It was great to been in touch with you and rest of my alum through this log. Accountability is great especially when you see how much other people are getting done. I wish I wrote more...my greatest challenge is that my priority goes to paid work and then my kids' needs (Girl Scouts, etc...) and so by the time I get to logging my writing, I notice that my tendency is to do the easier stuff like research, blogging, querying, rather than sit down and work on my memoir. Thank you for giving us this platform...it would be nice to keep it going.
ReplyDeleteIt was a great experience. In my current state of affairs, it's proven to be really difficult to write every day and I've started really rethinking having my job. :-) (One heck of a realization? It's been coming for a while). It also seems like I'm one of those people who needs space to write every day or every few days, but not the everyday "must do, have to sit at desk or else" routine, otherwise the poems want to run away. Logging really helped. The company was also wonderful. I would love to try this again when my life is not overfilled with not-writing. Thank you so much, Andromeda, it was a good experience.
ReplyDelete- Olga
Thanks for the comments, everyone. I'm glad I waited nearly two weeks before adding my own, because I'm already beginning to change my view on how daily writing and reporting affected me. Right at the end of the month, I was feeling a little bullied (by myself) and needed a 1-2 week complete break from writing--which led me to think that if I wrote more intensely it simply evened out with needing to write less after the intense spell, with the net result more or less the same. But recently I went back and read what I wrote during the 30-day intense period and I think it is qualitatively different, perhaps because I didn't take long breaks between my writing sessions; I slipped into the fictive dream more easily and taught myself how to write in 25-minute bursts again, an ability I'd lost over the years with my constant self-distraction via internet. I wrote scenes I barely remembered writing, and managed to get a lot of solid work done. That doesn't mean it's all good or even useable, of course, but I was possibly managing to access another side of my brain. Daily writing, semi-regular writing (few days a week), and binge writing (store it up, go to a retreat, and write a ton of words in a few days) all seem to have their own effects on quantity and quality, in my mind. If I were every feeling really stuck, I'd do this sort of thing again -- with a support group of some kind.
ReplyDeleteI loved seeing how all of you, including alums, kept reaching out to each other and hope you'll sustain those relationships in the years ahead. I appreciate the other FB group page (Blue Fox) and hope this someday morphs into an even more active alum organization as the total number of UAA MFA low-res graduates grows to a critical mass. Connect, support, network! And thanks for sharing this experiment with me!