A few weeks ago, I was browsing Facebook and came across a page I follow and click through to pretty regularly (The Blog Squad I believe it was), and she had posted a badge that she was going to be participating in something called a Shut Up and Writeathon. I thought to myself, “Hmmmm…sounds super intriguing. Love the title.” And so of course I couldn’t help myself (could you?), and clicked on over to see it.
There I came upon Stella Orange
I’ve heard of Stella before. I’ve even had a client or 2 tell me about her in the past, so I know she gets around. Seems like she’s a pretty well known name in the industry. And because I help people create websites for their businesses, and copyrighting is a pretty important piece of the website creation process (no copy, no website, right?!), I’m always looking for ways to help my clients get good copy churned out.
I don’t consider myself a writer
Yes – my mom has always told me I’m really good at it (thanks, mom). And yes, I was on my high school newspaper a cajillion years ago (Features Editor, thank you very much). But I don’t love to write like I know some people do. Blogging and web copy? Boy howdy, trying to create those types of content has always been like pulling teeth.
But lo and behold, I’m volunteering on the WordCamp Seattle Planning Committee this year and out of the blue, I felt utterly compelled to also volunteer to teach a KidsCamp workshop at said WordCamp. And on top of that, I’m working with an amazing group of ladies in a mastermind group to grow the Tech It Easy with WordPress meetup and support website. Oh yeah – and all the work for all my lovely clients, there’s that, too.
So I’m staring down the barrel of needing to do bunches of compelling writing and content creation and way, way more often than the once about-every-4-months-when-I-manage-to-get-a-blog-post-writing-date-arranged-with-my-writing-buddy timeframe it had been happening in.
No pressure or anything
So in a rush of ‘don’t think about it, just do it’ I signed up for Stella’s 10 Day Writeathon, too. I figured you can’t go too far south if it’s free, right?
But then I started thinking that I know myself, and if I don’t do something to actually get this done as it’s happening, I know with 100% certainty that it is not gonna happen. It will linger in my inbox and I’ll look at it feeling guilty every morning and think, “I’ll get started tomorrow and get caught up” and I know without a doubt that that won’t happen either. And then it will get shuffled off into my TRAINING folder and clean off my radar.
So I decided that come heck or high water…
I was going to find a way to get this done. And miraculously, I did.
It wasn’t easy, and it didn’t happen first thing every morning like I’d hoped, but except for one day last week (that I did manage to get caught up on over the weekend), it did happen. And I gotta say – couldn’t be more proud of myself. And what’s more – I’m feeling a tiny, itty bitty writing muscle starting to form.
[Hammering out a personal story here, so let’s not get too sidetracked.]
This blog post is the culmination of the writeathon. It’s supposed to include 5 bullet points – so let’s make those…
The 5 things I learned during my Shut Up and Writeathon:
- My friends thought I was crazy opting to do something like this in the middle of a really chaotic time for me. And despite how much I evangelized it, they were not interested in participating. Humph! But what I learned from that is having the right thing (book, webinar, training, writeathon) show up in your life at the right time makes all the difference in the world.
- It turns out, I love writing with a timer on. I’ve tried a timer for other things in the past – (hello Pomodoro productivity technique); even used it with my daughter to try and keep her focused on her homework (she absolutely hated it). But a timer, just in my line of vision works wonders for me with keeping my fingers flying across my keyboard. Not to say that gold comes out of my fingers when I’m doing this, but hey, at least I’m not sitting there staring blankly at my screen wondering what the heck to write, clicking on over to Facebook to get some inspiration or a temporary moment of reprieve, and then being lost down the rabbit hole for hours on end.
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I learned that I need to lighten up a little bit. One of the key “disciplines” (Stella calls them) is Celebrating Failure – not being afraid to do a sh*tty first draft, not being afraid to put something mediocre or unoriginal out in the world. Unoriginal has been one of my biggest “fears” for as long as I can remember. My parents, my teachers, my high school friends – inspired me to want to be original when I was growing up which is really a great thing. I can see the same thing forming in my own daughter, and it makes me proud. But that can really mess with your head when you’re trying to create something and it has to be “original” so it’s not just extra noise out there.Really makes you want to not hit publish on it. And then you start to spiral backwards because not only do you not want to hit publish, you think if I’m not going to hit publish, then why even bother with sitting down to flesh out my outline, and if I’m know not going to flesh out my outline – why even get started with an outline in the first place. And then BOOM! – 3 months go by and your dreams of churning out that super-helpful blog post about using the WordPress Media Library along with graphics and a charming little 5 minute screencast are just a whisper in the wind. Yeah – at least you’ve captured the idea in your miles long list of blog post ideas but you’re still eons away from putting it up on your website.
- OK – what else have I learned from Stella’s class? I now have more than just a little crush on Stella Orange – and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Not a kissy-kissy type of crush – just an “Oh my gosh, I love this woman and her energy and her message and I feel like a silly teenager-fangirling-over-a-boy-band love her” type of crush.
- And oh yea – I learned that I can write. Because what the heck – this isn’t too bad a blog post, is it?!
- BONUS Learning (wow – I came up with 6!) – I learned that working in full screen mode where I don’t see any other tabs on my laptop and where my whole screen is covered with my writing area and very little else besides my writing prompt – works wonders for me in terms of staying focused and getting it hammered out. (So I make my fonts bigger and put more space between lines on my writing screen – just like trying to stretch out that 1 page paper into 5 when you were in high school but for better reasons).
So there you go. I think her next writeathon is coming up in January, and if this is an area you’re struggling in like I have been, I can’t recommend it enough.
One thing I am still hung up on
How to take these blissful 10 days of writing and make them into a lifelong habit. I’m tired of just doing things half-a**ed and not really making a change. Plus I’ve got things that need to be written for my business and other endeavors coming out my ears right now, and I need to find a way to make that happen – to keep writing every day – to show up as Stella says.
So for the time being, I’ve added Shut Up and Write to my nifty little habit tracker in my digital bullet journal (another fun thing I’ve introduced into my life lately) and since that’s been working so well for me the past 2 weeks, I’m going to keep it up because this writing habit is every bit as important to me as making sure I’m getting a walk in in the mornings and meditating regularly and getting to bed at a reasonable hour.
Look at that – it’s almost like I’m an actual grown up! Yay me!!
So get yourself ready for some serious awesomeness coming out of this blog soon. I’m on top of it. And now I’ve just publicly committed to my sweet little readership that they’ll start getting some value out of subscribing here, so you better believe I’m going to follow through!
Stay tuned for that riveting-sounding blog post on the Media Library. It will be here before you know it!
