At first I wasn't going to admit it, but honesty is important. So I am just going to come out and say it... I haven't been very successful with my 30 day challenge. :( I know, I know... I should have tried harder and I am not too proud of myself. There are a number of reasons why my challenge hasn't been going too smoothly. Just to refresh your mind, my challenge was to plan out a whole story and complete at least 3 chapters of it within a month.
I piled way too much on me. I thought it would be easy, but boy was I wrong! Planning out a WHOLE story, and what to include in it takes a lot more time than I had expected. You have to decide how much and what you should include in the chapter. Plus, you have to have all of your settings, characters and plot planned out so that you don't miss something or forget to include an important detail. Or else, your story will go no where. I should have thought of a more reasonable goal, and planned it out more. For example, I could have said that in the first week I would finish my outline, in the second I would write Chapter one, and so on. But I didn't!
Another reason my challenge hasn't been running smoothly is the time factor. I know that a lot of people have had this problem... We just can't find the time to do it! My challenge takes hours and hours. Between school, family and homework, sometimes I find it a struggle to find time for my story. Some people's challenge take up no time at all; such as not eating candy. Not eating candy doesn't exactly affect your time; but it does affect you in different ways. You need a LOT of will power to complete that challenge. The only time I can ever find to work on my story is the weekends, but then I feel like I am cramming it in and I get a brain block.
The third reason is that I haven't felt too motivated. I always plan out these extravagent story ideas in my mind, and get so excited about them. But when I try to put them on paper (or in this case, on Microsoft Word), I realize that they may not be as great as I thought. Or that there are loose ends in my idea that I need to fix or the whole story won't make sense.
BUT I AM DETERMINED! So I have decided to give myself a second chance and I am going to attempt to modify my 30 day challenge and complete it! Now, there isn't much time left, so I may need to extend it to more like a 40 day challenge. I really would like to tie up all the loose ends up my story idea and get typing! My challenge now is to finish my WHOLE Plot outline, plan out my next 3 chapters and complete at least one chapter--- but attempt to do more within the time limit if possible. I am going to keep a notebook or journal, with a timeline in it. I will say how much work I need to do each week, and the appoximate amount of hours it will take. This way, when I am sitting around bored and not knowing what to do, I can look at my journal which will remind me to work on my novel. Some days I may even bring my journal to school so that when I have free time, I can jot down new ideas in it. This way, when I don't have access to my laptop, I can still be working on my journal. I have already told my mom about my challenge, but I am going to ask her to try to remind me to work on my story every once in a while. Like they say in the IDEO Shopping Cart video; deadlines are important because they help you reach your goal and keep you on track. If you don't have a deadline or planout, then you may just forget about your goal in the first place and keep putting it off.
I am not very proud of the fact that I have only done a little bit of my plot outline and Chapter 1. It makes me feel and sound weak. BUT, it has made me more determined than ever to complete my challenge. Many of my peers have said that their challenge is going well, and I will admit that it makes me feel a little discouraged. I have also heard some people say that their challenge isn't going as expected either, so I feel like there are some people on the same page as me. Hopefully the ones in the class that have been struggling can work though all of this together. Because if we DO complete the challenge, then it will give us encouragement and make us want to try more new things.
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