Twenty-four Hour Writing Challenge

For a couple years on January first, I’ve attempted twenty-four hours of First Write, as much writing as possible wedged into the hours between 12:00am-11:59pm New Year’s Day, with some breaks in between. This challenge allows me to see writing from a different perspective, using the idea of writing for fun, keeping in mind that some things can be updated later. My goal for these hours is to write at least ten short stories, creating beginning, middle and end of a story in various genres. I have done this two other times before. These can include Manga, Biography, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Magical Realism, Poetry (rarely), Horror, Contemporary, or Historical and others! Since I touch in genres that I don’t normally write in, I can use this for two purposes. 1) Figure out which types of stories that I want to improve. 2) Find new stories that I can use for my story blog, or as an inspiration for future novels.

When I write during the twenty-four hours, it is easy to think I’ll just be guzzling coffee and eating sweets to stay awake. The First Write website, though the vision has changed a little bit, is established to promote healthy balance. Teas and consistent exercise and rest are promoted through the example schedule. My first year I was highly encouraged to donate to a nursery that focused on saving trees. As a writer who can use scraps of paper for inspiration, I see the benefit of this. They have since revamped their website and many of the motivational aspects of the challenge have been eliminated. However, I view it as a doable challenge, seeing as I still have several hours to sleep before hitting my teacher work day on January second. It motivates me to think creatively at the beginning of the year and often crafts how I will write in upcoming months.

The planning starts out early, usually right after Christmas. I have a goal to write new stories; I choose to write short stories because I don’t usually write them the rest of the year. Additionally, I am starting some sketching, so I hope to put some drawings with my new short stories! This year the challenge falls on a Sunday, so I am planning to include a couple hours of church and then a writing group, depending on holiday hours. As a note, finding a group that meets weekly to write or to discuss writing ideas is a great way to expand knowledge of writing tactics. For me this builds a community that can encourage me as I write and share what they are working on in all areas of writing. Some of us put together novels; others, kids books or plays; some are working on dissertations or a comedy script.

Improving my Art

Last year there were several stories that after I had written them, I thought, “There is no way I am going to use that for anything!” Most of these were from the thrown together dialogues at 2:00 in the morning. Maybe they will never go beyond my blog. But the reality is, they forced me to write about a world that I would have never touched without this challenge. That is one of the reasons I keep coming back to this. There is definitely not only one way to write. Each person must find where they can be motivated and find ways to push themselves as a writer. And above all, keep writing! This is the only way to build improvement and confidence. Don’t be afraid to read books by your favorite authors (or, for that matter, authors you might never have considered). But don’t stop there. Find the way that you can write on a consistent basis and make it a daily habit. It doesn’t have to always be good. It just needs to be written. You have to start somewhere. Each of these images below I later added to some short stories on my blog with Vocal Media.

Working on my Craft

When I look for ways to improve my writing, I start with the most obvious: either googling or Pinterest. The latter is probably my favorite, but I find myself getting sucked into all the great ideas thrown at me. “Oh, you like this? Try reading this!” “That is of interest to you? Try ten more of these!” “If you’ve made something like this before, here’s a list of one hundred more ideas.” The inspiration is endless. I really like to stick with Pinterest at the beginning of a project to narrow down favorite ideas. When I’ve already written a story, I try to find books that are similar to that type of tale or something that I can read a certain chapter to clarify something I’ve written. I am by no means condoning plagiarism, but there is often something in the writing or the text itself that can spark an idea, leading my stuck story down a path that I wasn’t expecting. Sometimes I allow others to read a portion and give ideas. I don’t particularly love this idea because everyone has their own opinion and it ultimately must come from the author. However, feedback is especially useful if there is a specific problem and I need a new set of eyes.

I embark on each January with expectations high, but my reality bar set to nil. I will do my very best to accomplish about 25-50 pages of amazing work. But in the long run, it will probably all be rubbish. Most of this is because I try to create an amazing story at three in the morning, but that might be just the ticket for inspiration to strike! By January 2 I will have developed something that wasn’t there the previous year, and this is something worth celebrating, a kick into the new year that reminds me, “I am going to put forth my best effort and sometimes there will be flops. But I will take what I can from that and learn how to do better next time. I might reach my limits, but I will also see that I can exceed what I thought possible. This is another year of possibilities and I am going to seize the day. Where can I find joy?”

My schedule had to be tweaked a bit, but below is an example of what I am going to try to accomplish this year for the challenge: