THE WRITING CHALLENGE- 2018
For the next 31 days, I will be involved in a writing challenge courtesy of Jeff Goins. He is a wonderful motivator and trainer of wanna-be writers. You should Google him. The purpose of my involvement with the challenge is to help me return to the habit of daily writing. By accepting the challenge, I agree to write a minimum of 500 words per day. This will be no easy task for me.
I will not be posting all 31 days of my efforts on this blog, but I did want you to know what I am attempting to do. Most of my posts/daily writing assignments will either be consistent with my blog’s theme of “The Power and Promise of Hope” or closely related topics.
Just an aside – about two years ago I “retired” from my vocation as a pastor. I was lucky enough to be offered an appointment to another church. That new appointment began last July 2017. My goal at the time was to remain in that appointment for several years or until my wife retired. Until recently, the plan was working well. Some unexpected health concerns have popped up and I have reluctantly returned to retired status. With the extra time I now have, I can attend to my health issues. And of course, I can also attend to this writing challenge.
My mind is good, my spirit is good, but alas my body has not joined the trinity of balance – mind, body, spirit. Hopefully with physical therapy, exercise, diet and determination, my body will respond to efforts to maximize my attempts at returning to full functioning.
That being said, it is absolutely appropriate that this 31 day writing challenge begins on New Year’s Day. Make no mistake, this is not a New Year’s resolution. It is a writing challenge that runs for a finite time period. After the challenge concludes, I am hopeful I will be primed to finally finish the rough edit of my first book. I underscore my assertion that this challenge is not part of any new year’s resolution.
My mind is racing ahead and is concocting a scenario in which I now launch into a trite attempt to say something original concerning the new year and new beginnings and new hope. I imagine any reader who has made it this far will grab at the chance to be done reading this post. You’re thinking, “I know what he is going to do next. He’s going to begin a worn out attempt at turning the old themes of the new year and new beginnings into something worthy of reading. He isn’t that good a writer.”
If you’re not thinking that, you should be, because that is what I had in mind. And you are correct in your assessment of my creative writing abilities. See how easily the deficiencies in my talent become apparent. Perhaps in the next 31 days, one of my writing colleagues will put me out of my misery by completely exposing my lack of any talent or my lack of any hope in improving my craft.
There it is – my theme – hope. Somehow I got around to what drives me – the power and promise of hope. That wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. To the regular readers of my blog, I apologize for this disconnected posting. Expect posts worthy of your time to return after I complete today’s attempt to begin the 31 day challenge.
WORTH SOME THOUGHT
Writing to put words on a page and writing to convey something of value are two entirely different tasks. I hope as the challenge unfolds and, in future blog posts, I will be able and skillful enough to offer value, not just words. Happy New Year to friends old and new.
Excellent idea. My fingers are crossed for your success.
Thanks. Just finished Day Two picking up on the last paragraph of this post. Words versus value. Did my comment on your Year in Review ever show up? I resent it today. Thanks for your taking the time to read my posts.