Lessons from my 30-Day Writing Challenge

Here’s how I feel, what I learned, what changed, and next steps

I did it! Can’t deny it: I’m real proud of myself.

I skipped not a single day. I wrote 30 days in a row about the same topic: quotes from Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic. Even if I had to stay up until 2:00 AM after a full day of teaching remotely while doing my best not to neglect my family, I published one article each day.

Masochist that I am, I got a kick out of it.

What I learned:

Productivity. It took me forever to write the first few articles. By day 15, it took me half of forever. By day 25, probably a quarter of forever -excluding finding the right image, on which I continue to spend too much time.

Confidence. I know I can write an acceptable 300–400 word piece every day. Piece of cake!

Writing challenges work, at least for me. They keep me accountable and motivated. I also like counting up and then counting down: I’m on day 12, or Five more days to go.

It wasn’t hard. Following Stoic principles is hard. Telling you about them is not. In the words of the other fantastically quotable writer, the great Mark Twain, “To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.”

Boredom. I didn’t get bored of Seneca, but of writing about Seneca’s quotes.

Finally and hopefully, my writing improved — but that’s for you, the reader, to decide!

Changing numbers:

Here are my numbers for views, reads and fans over the 30 days preceding the challenge:

And here are the numbers for the 30 challenge days:

Not bad, in my view.

I’ll also note that on the first day of the challenge, I had approximately 450 followers. At the end of it, my followers are at 580. And the change didn’t come from me indiscriminately following writers all over the place. It came from engagement.

I believe, and I hope, there’ll be residual growth resulting from my Seneca series in the coming days and weeks.

My rate of curation, though, decreased. That’s OK, though. Medium rarely curates anything that’s part of a series, and I knew this going in. The fact that two of the thirty articles got curated was a nice bonus.

Next Steps:

Naturally, I’m going to catch up with family and friends I’ve neglected while I spent so much time with Seneca.

After that, I’ll take up this self-made challenge:

Over the next 30 days, I will publish 6 longer pieces (500+ words) on Illumination, with curation in mind. Will let you know how it goes!

THANK YOUs

Thanks you Dr Mehmet Yildiz for presenting this challenge

Thank you to the Illumination Editors for promptly publishing my articles and for leaving encouraging responses.

Karen Madej 💛 Joe Luca Salam Khan Paul Myers MBA Sylvia Love Johnson Lilycelle Belarmino Ausa Dipti Pande Kevin Buddaeus Mary Holden Madoc Maduka Dr Ron Pol Volo Vash Gabrieknowseverything Timothy Key Michael Ritoch

Finally, I’d like to recommend the series by Matthew Gliatto on The Butterfly Effect. Knowing about logical fallacies helps you spot them more easily and to better judge arguments. Part 12 of the series summarizes it all.