Pre-Writing Challenge Update: Week 1

We’re 1 week deep and it’s been a challenge already.  We’re going to take a look at how our participants are doing so far, but first I have 2 announcements to make.

Prizes For Pre-Writing Challenge Participants!  Sort Of.

I downloaded a program called WriteRoom to help me focus my writing during this challenge.  I tried it out and immediately fell in love with it.  It’s a simple text editing program that completely blacks out your computer screen so you can’t see any windows, menus or clocks.

I wanted to share this tool with everyone involved in the challenge, so I immediately sent them a link to the the WriteRoom page where there’s a free download for a 30 day trial.  I also emailed the creator of WriteRoom and asked him if he would sponsor our challenge by offering some prizes to our participants.  He generously agreed to give out 3 free licenses to the participants of my choice.

I gave some thought to how to choose the 3 winners and came up with 3 different methods to choose each participant.  Each prize winner will have to complete their Pre-Writing Challenge by the end of March 21, 2010.  From those who qualify:

1. Winner #1 will be chosen by you, the readers.  This week I will get a poll placed in the left sidebar where you can vote for your favorite participant.  The author that motivates the most readers to vote will win a free license.
2. Winner #2 will be chosen by the participants.  At the end of the challenge, I will ask each participant to cast a vote for someone else in the group, who was encouraging and inspiring to them.  The author who does the most to support others in the group will win a free license.
3. Winner #3 will be chosen by me.  I will choose the participant who makes the biggest contribution to the administrative side of the Pre-Writing Challenge by updating regularly and promptly.  The author that does the most to make my job on this challenge easier will win a free license.

Notice that all 3 of these qualifications have naught to do with their writing performance.  The winners will be those who were able to contribute beyond just the writing aspect, by either engaging their readers, their peers, or helping with the challenge itself.

Content is King but won’t get you anywhere without the ability to engage readers, build relationships with peers, and leverage opportunities.  These prizes will go to those who do these things best.

But I Made A Mistake

After doing all that work, writing this update, and informing all the challenge participants of my evil plan to get them cool swag, I learned that I made an oversight.  WriteRoom only works for Mac computers…whoops!  Some participants won’t be eligible simply because they don’t use Mac’s.  Lame, I know.

I was employing my motto for the year – Direction, Not Perfection.  It worked.  I accomplished something cool, and made mistakes that I’ve learned from.  I still felt sheepish though.

I am currently polling our participants to see which ones can actually use WriteRoom, which might take all the fun out of the competition part of it if there’s 3 or less.  However, I did find a program called DarkRoom that was written by a WriteRoom fan that had a Mac and a PC.  It does the same thing, and it’s a free download.  I don’t know if it has all the customizing options WriteRoom does, but regardless it’s still a valuable tool for focusing your writing time and making it more productive.

New Participants

Yesterday I had two bloggers that I’ve been following recently contact me about joining the challenge, even though we’re a week in.  Who am I to turn people away?  Welcome Eleanor Edwards from Give A Brick and Ralph Carlson from Ralph Carlson Blog. I’ll be adding them to The Pre-Writing Challenge Main Page soon with their bios and challenge pages.

Now, the fun stuff…

Pre-Writing Challenge Updates for Week 1

Megan Potter: Limitless Living – Open Yourself to the Possibilities

I decided that I needed to look at this challenge as the entire 6 weeks of writing (18 posts) rather than just the 2 weeks of pre-writing (6 posts) otherwise I would be so focused on the 6 post topics I’d forget to think of things for the others. So this is where I stand on all of them.

I have, at least, an idea for something like 13-15 of the 18 posts. Three are now in draft format (fully written and linked, waiting for editing and finalizing), and three have either been posted or are already scheduled to post.

I’ve written at least two of the six around midnight when I should be in bed – or at least not working. I just can’t stop writing! Although, I imagine there’s a good chance I’ll crash and burn in about three days .

Yours,
Megan

Carlos Velez:  Conscious Me | A Personal Development Journey

Since the challenge started, I’ve almost completed 2 rough drafts of pre-writing posts, along with writing the 3 posts that published this past week, completing this coming monday’s post, and most of the next post. I’ve also worked on 2 guest posts to submit to other sites. I’ve done a pretty good amount of writing this week on top of a lot of other work, so it’s been a very productive week. It still leaves me a bit behind on the Pre-Writing front, though.

- Carlos

Justin Matthews: Catharsis of the Bogue

As for my challenge week one, I have my 10 post ideas and some notes on most of them.  I have started one in draft and I am going to try to crank out 1 or 2 tonight.  My goal for this challenge is to write posts that would be regular features on my site.  I want to be able to choose one when I need to post without worry that it is timed or topical.  I guess that is pillar content but I am not focusing on a very specific niche.  There have been some tough days that I could use posts like that and that is what I am going to write!

Justin

Antti Kokkonen: The Blog of Antti Kokkonen

I’m filling my buffer by writing only on weekends. At the moment I’m
publishing every other day, which makes the target for the challenge
(two weeks worth of content) 7-8 posts. On the first weekend I got 5
articles going and finished two of them.

During the second week I worked on my content strategy, and decided to
push for a full series of posts about SEO (search engine
optimization). I have the content outline drafted, and it looks like I
might end up with more than the 8 posts I originally planned, but
we’ll see.

Cheers,
Antti Kokkonen

Aaron Pogue: Unstressed Syllables

As Carlos has pointed out, it’s been my goal to work through the next six weeks (or, five now) of posts during the course of this challenge, so I’ll end the month with two more weeks finished.

Given that, I haven’t made great progress on my eight challenge posts. I’ve written one to completion, and done good descriptions on the other seven. I have gotten nine of the next twelve posts done, though — so I should be rolling right into the challenge posts early this week.

Aaron

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Conscious Me is now on Facebook.
Visit the new page and add me as your friend!

Thanks,
Carlos

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Related posts:

1. How I Got A WriteRoom Sponsorship For The Pre-Writing Challenge
2. About The Pre-Writing Challenge: This Will Greatly Benefit You Bloggers
3. Pre-Writing Challenge Updates: Week 2 + Darren Rowse Message To Challenge Participants
4. Bert Padilla (Guest Post): Advantages Of The Pre-Writing Challenge
5. Pre-Writing Challenge Updates: Week 3 + E-Book And Future Event