Day 1 of an Impromptu Month-long Medium Writing Challenge

One unwavering piece of advice for any writer seeking to improve has been to write every day. And as any writer knows, that is often easier said than done.

So, seeing as I’ve managed to only squeeze in one Medium article in April, piteously on the last day, hours before midnight, I’ve decided to use this entry into a new month as an opportunity for a fresh start. I’ll challenge myself to write every day.

Rules

• Write 1 hour every day, at least somewhere between 1000 to 2000 words.
• I do not have to publish an article every day. There is no set number of articles that need to be published in May. 31 entries to signify the days of the month would be impressive, though I’d be happy with 16. At least more than 1 article published by the end of May.

Goals

• To exercise my writing muscle and time management skills
• To learn more about Medium’s interface and features
• To explore different frameworks in writing
• To find what writing styles and work habits work best for me
• To find the discipline to write consistently and not solely rely on inspiration, especially during the times when the inspiration is simple not there
• To perhaps gain more followers to be able to qualify for the Medium Partner Program

What to Expect

- Some articles will not be great. I will spend time internally debating whether to publish some articles haphazardly, just to be finished with it, or to write some more and risk spiraling into analysis paralysis.
- Challenges in balancing priorities to do this challenge in addition to other projects
- Possible inspiration for future articles. Some articles published may end up a good precursor to other topics explored outside of this challenge.
- Sense of accomplishment. I may surprise myself and see how far I’ve gone.

With this first post I’m holding myself accountable to this challenge. The rules are rather open-ended and forgiving, summarizing habits I’ve been loosely following until April, when I got caught up in other responsibilities. The overall goal is to realign myself to following those habits again. I’m looking forward to seeing how this goes.