As the endless summer of the Coronavirus pandemic winds down, and I start getting my kids ready for school and schedules and the new "normal" of our day-to-day life, I'm attempting a few new things myself. I've set some goals for this month. Most involve my writing while others involve healthier lifestyle choices.
Write daily--even if it's just 100 words. Cultivate the habit.
Drink less wine.
Get daily exercise.
Join the #WriterInMotion project and follow through.
Go to bed at a reasonable hour (before 2am).
Stop wasting time on social media.
To achieve some accountability with my goals, I wanted to have a public-facing element for these challenges. Normally, I would do this on Twitter; I'd post daily updates, allow my friends to encourage me not to give up, mock myself when I slip up, etc. However, one of my healthy lifestyle choices (#6) required me to delete both Facebook and Twitter from my phone. (Way too much doom-scrolling these days. I'm not off for good, just reserving my social media time to when I can access my laptop and make a concentrated effort to engage and then get off.)
That leaves me only a few public-facing options, so I'm going to use this blog to document my progress. This also feeds into another one of my goals: 4. Join the #WriterInMotion project.
What is the #WriterInMotion project, you ask?? Why it's an interactive blog project that asks writers to draft and revise a short story in a collaborative environment. Writers receive a visual prompt from which they can spin story ideas. They then write a rough draft, aiming at a 1000 word short story in any genre or style they want. Over the next few weeks, participants will give each other feedback for revisions, either through each others' blogs or through the Writer in Motion Forums. By the end of five weeks, the goal is to have a completed short story.
When does it start? Right now. The prompt for the project went live today, August 1st. Tonight, I'll come back here and record some of my initial thoughts about the project and I'll start drafting. Check back if you're interested in the project, and go follow the hashtag on Twitter to see how others are working on the prompt. If you're a writer and so inclined, join us! It's good writing practice, it gets those juices flowing, and the community that has emerged around it has some of my favorite people in it. It might get you (and me) in the habit of writing again.