My Custom NaNoWriMo Challenge in Self Help

November is NaNoWriMo time.

No, NaNoWriMo is not the name of a Greek God or a newly discovered element in the periodic table. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It is an annual writing event held in November where writers challenge themselves to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. This is an ambitious goal – 50,000 words in one month translates into 1667 words a day. The idea is to focus on quantity – the draft can be edited for quality later.

A few writers in the os.me writers group decided to participate in NaNoWriMo. Exciting stuff – how cool would it be to read novels and other books by os.me writers!

I’m a sucker for challenges and I wanted to participate. Here’s the deal, however: novel writing is not my thing. Well, in eighth grade, I wanted to create a detective series, but that ship has sailed. I have trouble writing gripping non-fiction articles, the idea of concocting plot turns and twists in a fiction setting was out of the question.

I then read this article by Justin Cox. He said NaNoWriMo didn’t have to be about novels – you could take up something that pushes you hard. He gave a different point of view: “Create your own challenge this November.”

Well, why not?

My Custom Challenge: Post One Article a Day in os.me

This November was not a great time to take up an intense challenge.

The Sri Suktam Sadhana would go on till November 9th. I have other projects I’m devoting significant chunks of my time and energies. I didn’t want the additional task of writing 1000 ish words each day.

I decided to take up an easier challenge: I would post one article a day in os.me. Not necessarily write one article a day. I have been writing some articles on Medium, I could post some of them on os.me.

The challenge would give me two benefits. I have promised a few people I’d write os.me articles on a few subjects. I haven’t gotten around to them. This is a great opportunity to fulfil my promises. I also have several unfinished drafts in my drafts folder – the quest for perfection meant these good guys haven’t seen the light of day. This challenge would be an opportunity to finish them to a reasonable shape and press publish.

I Decided to Start the Challenge After Sri Suktam Sadhana

I decided to start this challenge on November 9th after the Sri Suktam Sadhana’s completion for two reasons.

Reason one – The Sadhana timings meant I could not promise sticking to the publishing schedule each day.

Reason two – Several folks immersed themselves into the Sadhana. I didn’t want to distract them from their single pointed focus with any articles. If folks read my articles, I’d be wondering, did I distract them? If they didn’t read my articles, then what’s the idea in writing? Was I overthinking? In any case, I decided to start posting for 30 days.

I did, however, post an article during the Sadhana – I couldn’t resist the temptation to join the os.me Halloween Challenge. I wanted to post three articles, but could muster just one, that too at the last minute.

The Challenge is to Maintain a Streak

I have written articles in spurts, but I haven’t really maintained a streak so far.

This is a good opportunity for me to try and maintain a streak. My goal is to maintain a 30-day streak, but I’d like to extend it further if possible. Alok Singha maintained a mammoth 141 day streak between 5th October 2021 till 23rd February 2022. To say I was impressed is a colossal understatement. 141 days!

Whether one article a day is a good strategy is another question. This may be an overload of articles on readers. On the other side of the coin, readers can choose to read articles on topics that interest them.

The main point of my challenge, then, is to maintain a streak. To get into the daily discipline of publishing. Write an article once in two or three days, but make sure I press publish.

Pressing publishing is not easy, and I love challenges because I get the external impetus to publish.