100 Articles In 100 Days Challenge What’s In It For Me

“Are they going to pay you?” my daughter asked when I told her that I was going take the Ezine writing challenge, writing 100 articles in 100 days. To begin with, I wasn’t going to have a full 100 days to write my 100 articles.
The challenge began January 10, 2011 and I hadn’t joined Ezine until January 27th.. Nevertheless, I wanted to confront myself with a new writing goal and see what I could learn from it. When I thought about the pay for my writing I confess that the challenge wasn’t going to pay any bills, but I glimpsed beyond the money that could be made.
If I had told my daughter and others, “I have signed up for a college writing course this semester. To get a passing grade, the instructor challenged the class to write 100 articles.”
My daughter and others may have then remarked, “You have your work cut out for you. Do you think you will pass?”
I am a published writer who has been paid for her writing. For me, writing for Ezine isn’t essential to finding a venue for my articles. Since I took on the writing challenge, I have gained new skills in a way that is teaching me better writing organization skills just as if I were taking a college writing class this semester.
One-hundred articles in 100-days is a Herculean endeavor. Fortunately, I have a body of work to refer back to. Written articles that were never published and in need of some rewriting. Material written more than 10-years-ago and stored on those 3 ?-inch hard floppy disks, some say that I should have gotten rid of the old disks long ago. It is taking some work to copy the articles from the disks where I can use them.
As writers, we grow and evolve the more we write. Sometimes going back and reading something that we wrote years before is enlightening. It is a window to the past. One article that I found was written soon after my dad underwent quadruple by-pass surgery. Dad died five-years ago, but he lived nine-years after his surgery. Rereading what I had written shortly after his heart attack that required the by-pass, gave me a look into the past at someone I very much loved.
Reading about the details that lead up to dad’s surgery and his post-surgery recovery, I discovered details of that time I no longer remembered. I felt my dad’s spirit nearby. Revising the article, I submitted it. Readers might learn from my family’s health crisis experience.
Organization
An instructor might have told the class the importance of record keeping. How keeping a log of what you write and submit is part of the business of writing. I have been keeping records since I began writing more than a decade ago. But as I began writing and submitting for the Ezine challenge, I began to find better ways to keep records and adding to my logged records.
• Start a computer log sheet with each article title that you submit, whether you are submitting to Ezine or any other publication source.
• In the log besides the article title add the date submitted, word count and if you are submitting to Ezine multiple times include the number of each submission. Keep a column open for rejection notes and also list postage cost when submitting by mail.
Computer folders
For the Ezine challenge I created folders on my computer desktop
• A folder that holds a copy of every submission that I have made
• A folder that holds articles that I intend to submit after I rework them
• A folder with prepared articles that are ready to submit, but I haven’t gone online to submit them yet.
Many people say that they want to become a writer. Some will tell you in all seriousness that they have a book ready in their head complete with a title. What separates real writers from the want to be one writer told me, “Putting the butt to the seat.”
One hundred articles in 100-days is a lot to pull off. For many, life’s obligations just don’t permit enough hours in a day to add writing a 400-word article. Then there is “what’s in it for me?”
I learned in the brief time since I took on the Ezine challenge, more about myself and my writing then if I hadn’t challenged myself. I have used this opportunity to develop better skills in my writing business methods. For me, this self discovery amounts to a writing class semester, only I am not out any money or time away from home to attend classes. That time is spent writing articles. The self discover has no price.