So it’s a wrap.
Looking back on the last 30 days, and in no particular order, here are my thoughts on my first crack at Blaugust:
I can manage to write every day
This is a big one. I managed to pull off a few years of doing something creative every day, before I totally dropped the ball on that, but even when it was going, that wasn’t always writing. It’s good to know that even during a particularly busy and stressful month, when I put the onus on myself to write daily, I can do it. That’s critical information to have, given I want to write more fiction more often and have long thought it wasn’t manageable daily.
… and I can be given time to do that writing. Usually.
Also critical is knowing that when I presented wanting to write daily to my family, they just… well… let me. At least for the most part. It couldn’t happen at the same time every day for a variety of reasons. But even if it was me stepping away from family activities for a bit to get the post done later (or very late) in the day, I was given that time.
Granted, I sometimes had to employ my earbuds with white noise cranked up to focus, but it worked.
Fingers crossed that that allowance can hold longer term.
I can wing it
I did some prep late in July by writing some ideas for posts in August, because I didn’t know if I had it in me to just sit and write about whatever every day off the top of my head.
Well, it turns out I really, really can. Of the last 30 days of posts, only about half a dozen were pre-conceived topics from July, and those were used pretty early in the month, I suppose to kind of get the proverbial ball rolling. Another maybe half a dozen or so were thought of in advance within August, and I jotted those down because I knew damn well that I’d forget them.
But the bulk of these posts, well over half, have been completely off-the-cuff. I’d sit down day to day and decide in the moment what to write about.
This is good info to have, as well. I realized some time ago that as a writer I was a blend of story planner and “pantser” (i.e. flying by the seat of my pants, i.e. making it up as I go). I didn’t like having every last part of my story planned to the nth degree, but I needed some parts or guideline for the story planned out so that when I allowed myself to explore as I wrote, I didn’t stray too far from the needed storyline and progress. This just-sit-and-do-it discovery has assured me that I can perhaps skew a little more that way than toward planning, which suits me just fine, because it means less prep work before confidently diving into a new project. And the prep work is where I too often get bored enough with an idea that I abandon it completely.
Less planning, more action. Let’s do this.
It was fun. Mostly.
Blaugust, and my self-imposed rules for it, was an interesting challenge and I liked seeing the steady work I was able to do for daily posts for the first time ever. But there were definitely times it was an effort, where it was maybe late and I hadn’t had a chance to do the post yet that day and worked a full shift and was bone weary and mentally tapped and I just wanted to sit and unwind. But I’d made the committment, and so I did a full, earnest post — I never wanted to just phone it in to say I’d technically done it — and sent it out into the wild. Assuming I have the freedom to do Blaugust again next year, I’ll probably tweak it to be something like yes, pushing myself to post more, but without the obligation to do it daily. Or something? Time will tell.
All in all, it’s been a very successful, and gratifying, Blaugust. Looking forward to trying it again next year.