A couple of months ago, my friend Maya mentioned that she and some of her fellow teachers participate in an annual “blog-every-day-for-a-month” challenge in March.  She didn’t exactly throw down the gauntlet for me to take part as well, but she did gently nudge me in that direction.  She also gave me some great encouragement and advice,  including,  “Stop thinking, start writing.  This ain’t surgery.”  Maya shared her own strategy for getting the most of out this month-long challenge:  she makes the decision to focus less on the craft, and let the exercise be more about the act of writing.

Turns out, that mindset is tougher to adopt than I thought.   I have never been a “dash it off” writer.   I have been a meticulous, get it right the first time, perfectionist kind of writer.   As far back as grade school, I never wanted to turn in a “rough draft” of a paper.  I wanted to write the most perfectly crafted paper possible from the get-go.  I pondered.  I agonized.  I eked out every single word of every single sentence from some very deep place.  Well, as deep as you can get for a 10-year-old.   A rough draft was just not good enough.  Even when turning in a rough draft was part of my final grade,  I stubbornly resisted.   I’d actually settle for getting my “A” paper automatically downgraded to a “B” because I didn’t want turn in a rough draft first.    I know.  It makes no sense.  My teachers were baffled by it as well.

If I’d grown up in a time of computers,  I wonder if things would have been different?  Possibly.  It’s pretty great to be able to edit again and again and again,  right there on the screen, isn’t it?   But I still do a great deal of thinking beforehand.   At my first “real” job after college,  that tendency to want to mull things over was my biggest challenge.  As a news producer for a local ABC affiliate,  there was very little time for mulling.  Time was everything.   Speed was a struggle.  I had to learn fast, and I did,  but I don’t feel that I was ever a great producer.  A strong one,  a solid one, yes,  but never truly great.   (note to self: producing= future blog post)  My ingrained, “carefully crafting a story” approach meant I rarely had even 10 minutes to spare before air time.   Not ideal for the news biz.

So, yeah, back to that whole blog every day for a month thing.  I didn’t even make it a whole week.  What the french, toast?  Why couldn’t I seem to JUST DO IT,  like the Nike slogan says?  Dang it.  Then I felt like a loser for falling short of my own expectations.   Nobody else was making me feel bad about it.  Just me.

Then another friend referred to this challenge as “30 posts in 30 days” and all of a sudden I thought, ooh, hey,  there’s my loophole.  My way to get back in the game.  Of course there are 31 days in March, but no matter.  I could still make up the time.  I’ve got 20 days left.  And 26 more posts to make.  I’m not great with math, either,  but I think that equals 1.3 blog posts a day.

What does a .3 post look like, anyway?