Want to Sharpen Your Writing Skills? Try This Fun Challenge

Want to Sharpen Your Writing Skills? Try This Fun Challenge

Reader Comments (17)

  1. This is good stuff, right here.

    This content marketing stuff seems to be right up my alley. I’ve been a technophile since NASA put a man on the moon (yeah, I’m old); and about ten years ago, I took a friend up on a dare to prove that I wasn’t a very good writer, and I lost.

    So now I’m trying to put writing and websites together, fashioning the Reese’s peanut butter cups available for sale at the convenient store located along the shoulders of the Information Superhighway.

    Thank you, Sonia. I’m feel like I’m going to learn a lot here.

  2. I have been challenging myself every day going back over my first post to work on that first sentence. Seeing if I can rewrite them in a way that pulls the reader in. Those are all great ideas. I will have to pocket this for later when I finish rewriting the first sentence.

  3. Content writing/marketing is pretty important on the web (especially in terms of developing a way to telly your story in an engaging manner). At our small web design co. we’ve found that by tackling a multitude of projects, that involved us having to craft engaging copy for all pages in each project, we were able to significantly further our story telling skills – something that helps tremendously when attention span on the web is super short.

  4. Hi Sonia –

    Interesting that we both had the same response to NaNoWriMo!

    As entrepreneurs, it’s probably because we have to do things on our terms.

    I like these ideas a lot and plan to give them a try. Thanks!

  5. Great post, definitely a keeper! I have done some various 30 day challenges and agree they have not been great, except two: 1) ProBlogger 31 Day Blog Challenge (I will probably take 90 days to get through but that’s not the point, I am learning a ton), and 2) I took a 7-day TEDStyle Talk Facebook Challenge. This was just with a local group but it really gave me a great start on planning for something I have had on my “bucket list.”
    I love your suggestions for breaking down “challenges” into small pieces and specifically targeting one thing.
    Now off to develop my new challenge!

  6. Hi, Sonia!
    I’m a NaNoWriMo Rebel this year. Instead of working on a novel, I am writing as many blog posts as I can to reach the daily Magic Number of 1,667 words. It is easier to write in smaller chunks of two or three posts a day, and I look forward to seeing what I have on Dec. 1. It’ll be a glorious mess, but that’s OK. I’ll use December for a rewriting challenge.
    Thank you!

  7. Excellent advice Sonia.
    Making fun out of frustration when trying to write a decent
    blog post sounds like…, “fun”.
    Trying too hard sometimes intimidates, and discourages.
    Combining fun with a stronger daily writing habit might
    be the soup mix I’m looking for.
    Thank you for the inspiration.

  8. Great story! I’ve done the Whole 30 food challenge a couple times now and this sounds like a great challenge to tackle next. I would be really interested to see how this would work in a group setting too. If an entire office or classroom took this challenge together would people feed off other’s creativity? Very interesting idea.

    • Group accountability can be such a powerful tool. If you have a supportive group, I’d go for it!

      The challenge, I think, is just making sure that the group is respecting individual differences, and that everyone participating is doing it in a way that is beneficial for them. Since we’re all different. πŸ™‚

  9. I’ve got several goals going which isn’t (always) a smart thing, but I’ve corralled them with a 15 minute daily, as in 7 days a week, Tweetchat.

    12:30p is Reading Goals. 12:35p is Writing Goals. Business Goals and Self-Care Goals come in the next 5 minute increments that Hootsuite allows me to preschedule the anchor tweets.

    We share successes and failures. But it’s more than an accountability exercise. I Storify each week into a digest for future reference.

    Last month, we highlighted Lisa Cron’s Story Genius. This month we are taking a look at Native American author, #HonoringIndigenousWriters.

    It worked so well in October that I decided to add another mini Twitter event for November. Take 10 at 10. A 10 minute coffee break at 10a Pacific. I wanted to try out the hashtag for a blog I’ll be launching in January. I’m creating images for the 3 tweets a day that are coming from the blog’s Twitter account. I’ll repurpose those for blog post images.

    These mini sessions energize rather than deplete me (closet introvert). And I’m constantly discovering new benefits from the daily practice.

    Look for #Mto5 or #ChicoryChix on Twitter if you would like to join in. Experiment. Iterate. Right?

  10. The soup reference felt like it took a huge weight off of me as I have always thought of it in Everest terms. Insurmountable. Tossing in ingredients at hand to create something unique to me sounds so much more doable, and fun!

    Definitely going to do the challenge to improve on my soup making-skills.

    Thank you Sonia

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