Writing
The five times a week writing challenge
A little story on my fondness for writing and how I intend to hone the craft of writing by doing it at least five times a week *fingers crossed*.
English was my favourite subject in school. I wrote essays and stories, analysed the writer's stories and poetry, practised grammar; Aaah! Please take me back. I miss that.
Writing took a downward spiral once I went to college and later design school; my writing mojo just died. I wasn't writing as much as I used to — my work was limited to captions for social media, titles and short notes to describe my work in my portfolio and website, and editing my friend's and colleagues' writing/grammar.
Writing at Work
Cut to getting started with work, and I restarted my research into content writing since it became necessary while working on client projects (in case they needed content work — websites, project documentation etc.). I deep-dived into writing all over again. The excitement came back in full force. I have had blogs in the past where I would post my creative artwork and write stories about them, but with work, it was a whole another level. I got to (and still get to) experiment with different forms of compositions — project requirement documentation, proposals, website content, blog content, social media captions — the whole package.
In late 2017, my design mentor and I came up with an idea to educate the masses on everything about UX design. And that's how The UX Studio was born. Today (Even though the blog is not active), there are over 200 questions answered, 30+ articles, tool reviews, and design resources published on the site. I wrote 60% of the answers and a few articles, tool reviews and design resources (proudly patting myself on the back).
Discovering Medium
2019 is when I found Medium. I was hesitant at first, but then I thought, "Why not?" and wrote my first article. After the success of the first one, I wrote another one that year, and that was it. I kept putting it off since I gave work a lot more priority. I wrote a few more in 2020. And just one in 2021. I wasn't doing enough. The excuse of being busy is the mantra I used for not getting more serious with my blog.
2022 has been weird (it's just February, and yet), but after being put in charge of the company blog, the writing spark in me has reignited. It's just four days into February, and this is the third article going out. I have one more in drafts. We are on a roll, aren't we?
I researched online courses on writing in general and Medium and stumbled upon Tom Kuegler's guide to writing for Medium. That article is gold! I took some pointers from his writing and signed up for his free 5-day emailer Medium course.
I received the first email yesterday.
Publish 5 Times Per Week. That was the title; that was all the motivation I needed to get my writing ass moving. I have three articles published this week (including this one). A list of articles for next week is ready. If not five, posting at least three is my target at the moment. With Tom's tips (it's almost like a motivational push, I wouldn't even call them tips), I hopefully will get fully back into writing (along with work, yes).
Things seem to be exciting now. I have set aside 30 minutes every day to write about anything I can. Either for the company blog or mine. But something has to be written. Fingers crossed, I can keep up with the challenge!
Godspeed, my friends!
