My 30-Day Writing Challenge Results: 28 Pieces and 28,201 Words in 20 Publications

But not accomplished within the 30-day timeframe

On June 17th I publicly committed to submitting 30 articles to 30 publications in 30 days. 10+ days have passed since my writing challenge officially ended. Now it’s time to reflect, and, of course, dive into the stats.

Table of Contents (works only on Desktop, not mobile)

· My original goals
· Did I follow my own rules?
· Fun side effects of doing this challenge
· Some more stats
· Keep these things in mind during your writing challenge
· What I'd do differently next time
· Final thoughts

→ Want to try the 30-Day Writing Challenge for yourself?

· All my submissions for the 30-Day Writing Challenge

My original goals

Initially, I set four goals as KPIs in my pledge post.

#1 To finish the challenge and write 30 articles

I wanted to break my current record of writing 24 pieces in 30 days.

I failed. I wrote “only” 28 articles. In 39 days, not 30.

To stay organized during this challenge, I made a custom tracking spreadsheet. In it, I reserved columns for the planned “finishing” date and for the submission date. I counted the submission date as the deadline. Steal the template below:

I didn’t count by date published because after submitting a story to a pub, the publishing date is out of my hands, and I haven’t felt the need to request a piece to be published on a certain date.

#2 Increase my follower count by 200

• Pre-challenge: 950 followers
• Post-challenge: 1073 followers
• Net gain: 123
• Percentage increase: 12.95%

Is the number 123 versus 200 a fail? Not at all. Each follower is a person who has been so kind to tap the follow-button. And, during this challenge, my follower count exceeded the 1K!

#3 Increase my income

Didn’t happen. If we only look at income earned from the new articles created during the writing challenge…

• June earnings: $5.12
• July earnings: $23.21
• Total earnings: $28.33

That means I covered one week of groceries. What did it take? Let’s run some basic calculations. I track my time in Toggl, so I know exactly how much time I spend on each of my projects:

• Writing & editing: 80 hours
• Illustrating: 12:19 hours, and 29 minutes on average
• Total: 92 hours

Wait, what, illustrating? Yes, although this was unintentional. We’ll get there. First, let’s do some math.

• 92 hours / 28 articles and essays= around 3.29 hours spent on one piece
• Total earnings of $28.33 / 92 hours = $0.31 cents per hour

Had I not spent those 12 hours illustrating my own featured images, I’d be making a whopping $0.35 per hour.

Does this discourage me? Yes and no. Of course, I want a better return on my investments (ROI) of labor and time. On the other hand: I need to do a better job in giving my readers what they like to read from me. When I please the readers and offer them more entertaining, more valuable, and more captivating stories, the earnings will follow.

#4 Make sure to love the process

It’s a partial fail. I started off with my hopes up high in the skies. I was determined to, for the first time, do what I set out to do, and write the darn 30 articles within the timeframe of 30 days. Not 24 articles, not 29. 30.

My aim was always to finish one piece per day. Draft it in the morning and edit in the evening. Or draft in the evening, and edit everything the next morning.

Whenever I get an idea, I write it down immediately, so I started with a list of topics. For some pieces, I had drafts ready, so I wouldn’t need to start from scratch.

During the writing process, some stories often didn’t come out the way I had hoped. I sat there, staring at the few lines I had jotted down. Reading them back, they tasted like licorice. And I don’t like licorice. When I realized the piece wasn’t going anywhere, I stopped working on it that day and moved around posts on my planning spreadsheet. This threw me off-guard. Or well, I threw myself off guard.

The planning on the spreadsheet was The Law, and I was not abiding by it. I grew more frustrated with myself for not being able to stick to the planning.

When I please the readers and offer them more entertaining, more valuable, and more captivating stories, the earnings will follow.

Did I follow my own rules?

Not entirely. One rule I stated was: Each submission must be to a different publication. I broke this first rule on day 4. I was even naughtier and published in my own publications, twice.

Halfway through the challenge, I strayed away from submitting only to new pubs. If I know my story fits well with a publication I’ve been published at before, why not make it easy for us both?

My new rule became: submit to *a* pub. Whether you already submitted to them during this challenge (or before) doesn’t matter. If they reject your piece, either find a different pub or self-publish.

Fun side effects of doing this challenge

• I wrote my first piece of satire. And it got published in MuddyUm thanks to the ship’s captain, Susan Brearley. Hopefully, I’ve made my hearties proud by sharing how I became a multi-millionaire in one week so they can accumulate wealth and retire on a tropical island as well.
• I found out I like to illustrate. It started with illustrating one featured image, just for the fun of it. But then it escalated. Now the “blob” is my writing mascot! Illustrating extends the length of the content production process, but I love how it gives my pieces a personal touch. It also gives readers the impression I’m trying to make an effort (or so I hope).
• I got to know new writers and editors on the platform. Okay, this was expected, but it’s fun! I appreciate the general vibe on this platform. It feels positive, supportive, and I’m learning something new every day through other people’s perspectives and experiences. The amount of trolling and spamming on here is minimal. But maybe I have yet to experience it.
• I’m getting more courageous in my writing. I notice how I’m slowly becoming less hesitant, less scared to write about “taboo” topics such as mental health. You know, the things you should keep to yourself and not discuss openly. Other writers’ openness is helping me do so.
• I increased my average hourly word output from 500 to around 700–800. I had hoped to double it and effortlessly churn out 1K words per hour like the cool people do, but I’m not there yet.

Some more stats

• Total # of words written: 28,201
• Articles and essays accepted into pubs: 20
• Rejections: 10
• Unique pubs submitted to: 27
• Viral articles: 0
• # of pieces that got distributed: 11

Articles/essays published per month

• January: 9
• February: 9
• March: 10
• April: 5
• May: 5
• June: 10
• July: 18 (19 including this piece)

Keep these things in mind during your writing challenge

1. Compare your progress with yourself only. I felt a bit like I was trying to compete with “the others”. When I tried batching, my absolute cap is 4 drafts or final edits per day, and that’s for pieces that don’t require hours and hours of research. Last year, it took me half a week to write and finish one piece, so this KPI has certainly improved. Seems like it’s a matter of training.
2. When your mind is blank while working on a piece, set a timer. Move on to a different task when it rings. Staring at the same document for 30 minutes longer is not going to suddenly give you more inspiration. Stop forcing it. Close the laptop, go outside, have a walk. Try tackling the page again afterwards. If I don’t do this, I end up staring at the screen for two or three hours and beat myself up afterwards for not producing anything.
3. Don’t be naughty and try to edit and write in one sitting.
4. As Ted Rivers mentioned in his recap, you can revive older articles by linking to them from your newer pieces. Only link them where it makes sense, of course.
5. More writing does not equal more views, more reads, and more earnings. Oh, I wish. In my best month so far, I only wrote 5 articles. This July, I wrote 18 pieces so far. The financial results differ widely. Of course, writing more gives you more data points to study and draw conclusions from.
6. Craft headlines as seductive as the last pack of toilet rolls on a supermarket shelf during a pandemic. Make people want to touch it. No, make them want to run towards it or feel like they’re missing out. Point said, if I don’t put any effort into writing catchy headlines, no one will click on the piece, let alone read the text. Don’t rush this part.

What I’d do differently next time?

1. Never wait until the evening to DRAFT an article if I want to submit or publish it on the same day. There must be breathing space between writing the draft, editing, and finalizing the article.
2. Start at the beginning of the month so you cannot manually adjust the stat dates. They run per month. So I cannot compare my writing during the challenge with that of the month before.
3. Batch my writing a little bit more, so I can give myself at least one day per week off. I realized I want to write often, but not necessarily every day. I am not a machine and don’t feel any desire to act like one. Completely detaching from writing for a few days gives my brain a much-needed break. This doesn’t mean I love the art of writing any less. After a break, I always return to the keyboard buzzing with renewed energy and motivation.

Final thoughts

Although I wrote “only” 28 pieces across 39 days, doing this challenge did pull me out of a slump. It helped me get back into writing more regularly, so I’m happy and proud I finally pledged to give it a go. I’m even happier I didn’t give up halfway through. Public accountability helps a lot in that regard.

Getting better at writing is a lifelong process anyway and I’m fully up for the challenge.

I want to do the 30-day writing challenge again and hit the 30-mark. Setting time constraints on activities helps me find ways to handle my time better and give myself an extra push.

This time, I’ll be more prepared:

• I’m already added as a writer to many pubs I’m interested in
• I’m back into the flow of writing regularly thanks to participating in the writing challenge this last month
• I have a spreadsheet I can use to track my progress.

Now, the picking of the lock on Pandora’s box continues.

Want to try the 30-Day Writing Challenge for yourself?

Read how to participate in the 30-Day Challenge publication. When you’re ready to commit, write your pledge post and send it over to the pub so that other writers and readers can find it and hype you the f*** up.

It’s your challenge, so you decide which rules to follow. If 20 pieces in 30 days is a more realistic and manageable goal, that’s fine! You’re up against yourself, after all.

Good luck!

All submissions:

Check out all pieces I wrote throughout the challenge.

Submission 1, published in 30-Day Challenge:

Submission 2, published in Google Sheets Geeks:

Submission 3, published in P.S. I Love You:

Submission 4, self-published:

Submission 5, published in Know Thyself, Heal Thyself:

Submission 6:

Submission 7, published in Change Becomes You:

Submission 8, self-published:

Submission 9, self-published:

Submission 10, published in Feedium:

Submission 11, published in ILLUMINATION:

Submission 12, published in The Masterpiece:

Submission 13, published in The Post-Grad Survival Guide:

Submission 14, self-published:

Submission 15, published in The Pink:

Submission 16, published in Feedium:

Submission 17, published in Meld of Minds:

Submission 18, published in Long Term Perspective:

Submission 19, self-published:

Submission 20, published in The Introvert Collective:

Submission 21, published in The Side Hustle Club:

Submission 22, published in The Pink:

Submission 23, published in Invisible Illness:

Submission 24, self-published:

Submission 25, published in MuddyUm:

Submission 26, self-published:

Submission 27, self-published:

Submission 28, published in Fearless She Wrote: