2024 Monthly Challenge - March
The theme for March is finding (and keeping) inspiration. It's time to jump-start your ideas to keep them flowing all year long.
Feel free to follow along in the 2024 Plan Your Writing Year Workbook. You can get your copy here.
The Challenge
The challenge this month is to put a spring in your step! It's time to really find that motivation to write! As writers, we often live for those elusive moments of inspiration, when an idea hits you like a ton of bricks or a storyline comes together perfectly.
Inspiration also comes in the form of writing with joy. We all want to sit at the computer and have the words come to us easily - that moment when everything just pours out of you in a whirl of beauty. But more often, it's a struggle. You sit and muddle through clunky phrases and awkward sentences, knowing you'll have your work cut out for you in editing.
Writing is a discipline as much as it is an art. It takes heart and guts and steel resolve to put your butt in the chair, day after day, and piece it all together letter by letter. So, when moments of inspiration come... enjoy them as much as you can. Store up that feeling of joy so you can remember what it's like later when the going gets tough.
This month, find ways to hold onto that inspiration as long as you can. Experiment with different things to try to create joy in your writing. Post what works (or doesn't) using the hashtag #1SMchallenge2024.
Some exercises for this month's challenge (should you choose to accept it):
Think about when inspiration usually strikes you. Where are you when that happens? What are you doing? Try to recreate those moments.
Try some warm-up exercises like prompts or freewriting before your main writing sessions.
When it gets tough, imagine that inspiration feeling while you write.
