And so, we have reached Day Five of the #HiveBloPoMo challenge.
Earlier today, I found myself thinking "oh my God, I'm publishing far too many blog posts, this is not good!" But really... that's a silly concern.
After all, this challenge is about publishing daily, right? Of course — in my typical overkill fashion — I determined that I wanted to create this series of "conversations with myself" posts, but at the same time I also wanted to continue publishing my usual content.
But is there really such a thing as "writing too much?" It's just a fact that there are going to be a few days (because of this challenge) where I'm publishing two posts a day and looking at it from that perspective made me realize that that's not exactly "post flooding."
The Original NaNoWriMo Challenge
Then I got to thinking about the NaNoWriMo challenge, which is the original writing challenge this Hive-based version is modeled after. In fact, there are lots of different writing challenges loosely based on it.
In the original version, the goal is writing something every day during the month of November but ultimately to complete a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. When we translate that into its component parts that means writing 1,667 words a day. At least.
So when we bring that metric back to this community, I'm actually not even keeping up with the pace of the original challenge, in terms of writing output. And yes, of course, I realize this is not the same thing!
Regardless, the whole inner conversation made me sit back and contemplate the fact that I have never written a book.
I have attempted to do so, but I've never succeeded in it. My official excuse for that, is that I haven't been able to keep a train of thought going for 50,000 words. Reflecting on that makes me realize that it's all I can do to sit down and write 500-1,000 words in article format, just to put on my blog!
Which I suppose just goes to show that there are all kinds of different approaches to writing. Ultimately, I guess I find myself being somewhere in the middle. When I think about it, I also don't fit at the opposite end of the spectrum with all the people who obsessively sit and put out 300 tweets on Twitter sorry, X everyday.
Writing is often felt like a conversation to me. Being an introvert by nature, most actual conversations I have with people are relatively short and to the point, although there are exceptions with a very tiny handful of people that I know really well. Most other people they get... well... a 300 words synopsis of what needs to be said.
Maybe that sounds a bit glib or silly but it's kind of true!
Looking at My Old Journals
I still write in paper journals... you know, with pen and ink. Sometimes I go back and look at what I have written, and I recognize that a good bit of what's in there is probably the "external conversations" highly extraverted people have with their large circle of friends.
Most of it is neither "deep" not particularly meaningful, nor does is follow a specific topic. Much like my typical thoughts, my journal writing tends to wander all over the place.
And maybe that's OK, and exactly as it should be. Heck, it certainly helped me through the Covid lockdown times, where many people I know were basically going stir crazy!
Anyway, best get this out there, so I can keep up my "days!"
Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation! I do my best to answer comments, even if it sometimes takes a few days!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly and uniquely for this platform — NOT posted anywhere else!)
Created at 2023-11-05 23:33 PDT
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