Thank you to our 2014 Month of Writing Challengers!
2014 by the numbers:
424,124 total words written
21 Challengers reporting
3 Gold Level Finishers (50,000 words or more)
4 Silver Level Finishers (25,000 words or more)
8 Bronze Level Finishers (10,000 words or more)
And...more than half of our challengers (67%) met or exceeded their personal goals for the Month of Writing!
That makes for a successful challenge in our book!
-The SNL Writing Program
What some of our Challengers had to say about their writing experience this month:
Don Quixote:
"Although my writing practice did not significantly change by participating in this challenge, I felt more conscious about the kinds of writing I was doing and the amount of writing. More than this, I also felt more connected to a community of writers, and this transformed my writing, typically a solitary experience, into a social act. Being paired with a writing buddy also provided an outlet through which I could "debrief" my weekly writing successes and challenges, adding to my repertoire of writing strategies. In the end, the month encouraged me to reflect upon and appreciate writing as an important part of my everyday experience, and this singularly made my participation in the experience very worthwhile."
John F.:
I have discovered that I need more time management and organization of my material and deliverables. Remembering, posting, planning and organizing your writing is the challenge in itself. If you don't have anything or subject matter to write about then you can't achieve your goals.
anitalewis:
My goal was to write 20,000 words. I came very near to reaching the goal. I am working on a book, did some poetry, and wrote a few letters that I have been putting off. Knowing that I had a goal and a time frame to achieve it helped me stay focused on writing at least five days of the week.
Dre Smith:
I began writing and rewriting a poem, that transformed into a brief speech describing the challenges communities i am involved are are facing. I am proud of this piece because it truly came from my heart and I plan to continue working on this until it is more than what I expected it to be.
KACummings:
I wanted to start some articles and work on a couple of course ideas during this Month of Writing Challenge. I was able to do that, though I was not able to dedicate as much time as I wanted to this month. I noticed that I wrote probably three times as many words for work than I did for my own writing. Although I did not include it in my MOW total, I was surprised at how much writing I had done in my online class in particular. Overall, though I did not find as much time as I wanted to write, I found the experience enjoyable in that I wrote for myself at all. I hope to continue to dedicate more time to my own writing outside of work. Additionally, I hope to continue to expand and revise the writings I started this month.