Looking Back.

Well, I did it: a month of consistent writing. A colleague, Jaimee Newberry, once proposed I consider smaller goals that can be accomplished daily. She encouraged me to do them consistently for a month. A sort of personal NaNoWriMo, but for general purpose writing.

I have written most of my career—professionally—for one reason or the next, but I’ve never written for the sole purpose of improvement.

August wasn’t a month I chose on a calendar, it simply worked out that way. I had considered about how I liked to write, and what kept me so often from publishing. More than one friend¹ encouraged me to write smaller pieces. I resisted—felt my ambitions could not be squeezed into a few hundred words.

Then it occurred to me that I could break up a larger piece into several, smaller chunks. Simple, right? It’s hardly a revelation that shakes the Earth from its axis—but for me, it was everything. Write less, and I could publish more.

Four weeks ago, I took a piece that was intended as a whole, broke it apart, then published the pieces over a week. As I edited them individually, each took a life of its own. The results surprised me, and I kept going.

Notes on the Format.

The shorter form gave me momentum. Less to edit, less to format for publication. I started with a few guidelines, but they weren’t sacred. I’ve already broken them many times.

1. Target length is between 400 and 700 words. Definitely not more than 1000 words².
2. An optional, full width banner image³. This typically signals a post on photography.
3. Minimal sections. I use an H2 only for the title of the post. If I need them, an inline H3 can be used. Often for delineation.
4. A round-up post, published at the end of each week. This is written in a casual voice, without a specific narrative—meant as a behind-the-scenes. This—more than any other constraint of the format—allows me to be concise. If an idea or thought doesn’t fit within the narrative of a post, I save it for the end of the week.
5. Footnotes, for sidebars and humor. They’re liner notes for my writing. I like to write a lot of parentheticals in my daily correspondence. Through the use of footnotes, I can appear concise, but retain my narrative style.

I have exercised a few of the different types that I hope to post in the coming months. This month focused on what was easiest to write about. If an article didn’t flow quickly, I pushed it off.

Next week is a new month. Thank you for reading.