A few days ago, I blogged about my summer reading goal here. Today, I wanted to share my writing goal for the summer. Normally, I consider myself a reader. What do I mean by this? I love reading books, but I never gave any serious consideration to writing a book before. I consider myself a reasonable writer from a technical standpoint. I write a lot for work but that is very different than creative writing and story development. As a teacher, I also read a lot of student work and enjoy the process of helping them improve on their writing. So, I also consider myself a decent editor. But calling myself a writer,well that is another thing. I almost have this feeling of being taken back to preschool and to dress-up pretend play. I wonder if I am the only one who feels like this?
Yet, over the last year, I have felt the pull to try my hand at writing creatively. To stretch my brain and do something that may be uncomfortable and hard at times. Several friends have talked about creating a writing group that can support one another. To set goals and to work towards those goals. A couple of the members have manuscripts that they are preparing for query. Others, like me, have not even fleshed out a true chapter.
Of course when you decide to do something it seems like writing challenges pop up all over the place. Karen Mahoney, a YA author, started a Summer Reading Challenge which you can read about here. I signed up for it knowing that in June I would get little writing in and would have to play catch up in July and August. Then, on Judith Graves’ posting on GoodReads about a 1K a day challenge. The lovely ladies over at YA Edge are hosting a 1K a day challenge for the month of July. You can sign-up here I encouraged a couple of my other friends to join me. Breaking the writing task into 1,000 words seems much more do-able. However, I don’t think writing my blog counts towards my 1,ooo words. So, I am heading off to – yes, write.
I do have one quick announcement – In the next day or two, I am going to kick-off my summer book contests. I will be giving one book a way per week for the month of July in celebration of summer reading.
Happy reading or writing,
-Aly
Filed under: Challenges | Tagged: Summer Challenges, Writing |
Kid Lit Frenzy 
“I almost have this feeling of being taken back to preschool and to dress-up pretend play.”
This cracked me up!! I know EXACTLY what you mean… I feel the same way all the time. Calling myself a ‘writer’ despite writing daily for the last few years, just makes me think of my kids calling themselves a ‘princess’ or a ‘ballerina.’
YAY! So glad you’ll be writing creatively!! Your writing group will be such an awesome support group!
I’m hoping that every writer feels like a fraud from on occasion, because I do all the time! I’m just waiting for the moment someone decides to point out that I don’t know what in the world I’m doing. But, hey, if I can pull it off, then I know you can too. I look forward to seeing what you come up with!
Now, I need to be working on MY 1,000 words…
Thanks Marisa and Tammy for commenting. My blog is feeling official.