You may have noticed that this blog got suddenly and uncharacteristically busy the last week of February. So busy, in fact, that during that week I broke my previous record for the number of blog posts in a year. Why did this happen?
It's all thanks to Jeniffer Fulwiler, who blogs at Conversion Diary. She's responsible for the Seven Quick Takes phenomenon and the "Where do you write?" meme that I almost participated in a couple years ago. To that list we may now add the 7 Posts, 7 Days challenge.
Sure, for some bloggers, seven posts in two days would be considered slow. For us ameteurs, however, writing a post a day is a big commitment. The goal of the challenge is not just to create more posts (though that's a plenty good enough goal for me) but also to overcome both laziness and perfectionism. It shifts the focus to getting stuff done, which is something I've historically had a problem with.
So how'd I do? Reasonably well, I'd say. I managed to make a post every day of the week. Of course, a couple of those went up between 11:00 and midnight, and one of them actually went up just before midnight and I didn't get everything quite done until a couple minutes after, but I counted it as a success anyway. (Hey, the post page was up before midnight, so it counts.)
But did it actually help me stop procrastinating? Well...not really. I had this wrapup post planned before I even started the challenge, but I'm only getting it posted now, a month later. Clearly something more is needed to break the habit than just one week of hitting it really, really, hard. I guess it's analogous to the difference between studying and cramming, or between healthy eating and a "Get into my skinny jeans before the high school reunion" diet.
On the content side, I'm not 100% satisfied, but it turned out significantly better than I thought it might. Of course, being less than 100% satisfied is part of the point: You can't be a perfectionist when you only have one day (read: a few hours, once you get done with work and whatever else you have to do that day) to start and finish a post. I also think I got a nice range of topics, from words and definitions to video games to books to religious matters. I'm also quite proud of myself for not posting anything about Sonic the Hedgehog. (Directly, that is, though the series does tangentially relate to a few of my posts.) There are a couple things I would have liked to tighten up, such as the ultimate point of the post on the word "literally," but overall I'm satisfied.
Of course, the real reason I'm posting this wrapup is that I want to share what some of the other bloggers have come up with. After all, I put my link on the list, so it's only fair that I send some love in their direction, too.
One blog that I found via this challenge and really enjoyed is
Mama Knows, Honeychild
by Heather (a.k.a. Mama H.). Like Conversion Diary, it's a usually-humorous
blog mostly focused on family hijinks. The main difference is that it has stick
figures instead of scorpions. One of the 7-days posts was about
Mama H. having a bizarre dream.
Now I've had some odd dreams
and my family members have had some really bizarre ones, but I don't
think any of us has ever had a dream that involved doing that to an
owl. (Yes, this is a shameless tease. Go read the post.) The blog has a serious
side, too, having hosted thought-provoking posts about such subjects as
how not to argue against abortion.
Elizabeth at Blue Jeans and Fancy Things has an interesting post about a certain bill that recently got vetoed in Arizona. She also has a variety of thoughts, tips, and tricks related to cooking. (And hey, who doesn't like food?) Valerie at Momma In Progress mostly stuck with lists including a list of ways to be a rock star by just doing cool, simple stuff for your kids (and some of those sound plenty fun even for a boring nerdy quasi-adult-type guy like me).
[Update: Came here to fix a typo and found a bunch of broken links. Mama Knows, Honeychild has moved to its own domain name, so I updated the homepage link. Unfortunately, the two linked posts don't seem to exist at the new version of the site. In fact, the site itself appears to be broken. Momma In Progress is still there, but the linked posts aren't. (Looks like the Blue Jeans links are still good.) Fortunately, Archive.org's Wayback Machine has a copy of Mama H's abortion post and both the linked Momma In Progress posts. Sadly, it looks like the owl dream post is lost to history. If memory serves, I think she dreamed that an owl came into her bedroom and she took a bite out of its head. It's, uh, funnier when she tells it.]
You can, of course, read the whole list of participating blogs at the end of the Conversion Diary post that kicked off the challenge.