500 Words Every Day

500WEDSo I saw this challenge on Twitter. #500WED. 500 Words Every Day.  It looks intriguing.  Everyday you get a writing prompt and have to write 500 words based around that.

I’ve tried things like this in the past.  I’ve started NaNoWriMo several times, never completing it.  But I do like blogging and really like have prompts such as Rory’s Story Cubes.  I’ve even used Rory’s Story Cubes with students at work to draft stories and inspire creativity.

So yeah. When I saw something like 500 WED I decided I should try it on my blog.  I’m a storyteller by nature.  I can make up stories on the spot, reasons behind different things, and various lies.  Plus I have a ton of different stories from my own past that I love telling to anyone who will listen.  So yeah, #500WED.

Writing doesn’t come as natural to me as drawing or doodling does.  Writing my blog entries take time.  I usually do them in the mornings when I have some spare sitting time (although lately I’ve preferred to sleep in as oppose to get up and write… but that has to do as much with work stress versus productivity at home).

As someone who likes to create things writing is something I’ve always wanted to do but never been too successful at.  In college I kept a few journals.  I found these unrolled composition notebooks at the college campus store and took a few as journals to write down my dreams and thoughts.  Sadly after my sophomore year they stopped carrying them and I stopped keeping a journal…. although I always kept trying to get back into it.

My blog is my writing tool now.  Even this I do on and off spurts though.  I’m not too good on following through on things over the long run.  I’ve tried NaNoWriMo, P90x, Daily Drawings (although that one lasted the longest, just over 3 years strong before I stopped), and others.  But this, maybe with daily prompts I can manage to keep it up.

Arggg.  337 words and I still need to keep going.

So I guess this will be a good stress reliever from work as well.  Work has been long and stressful lately, certainly more than last year at this time.  I leave for work at 6:45am and leave from work at 5pm or later on a daily basis.  It leaves me beat at the end of the day.

So that’s why I’ll be trying 500WED (damn… if only I spelled out Words Every Day I’d have more words here).  Hopefully the writing prompts are slightly better than this one.  Day 1: Write your story: Who are you? What brings you here? That is, write what makes you want to say, And so I write.

I’m looking through previous writing prompts, because they do these writing prompts every month, and I’m not sure they are going to be motivating enough to stick at it, so maybe I’ll mix the writing prompts with Rory’s Story Cubes when I get stuck.  Some of the prompts would kill me to have to spend 500 words on.  “Apologies and Forgiveness.” “How do you feel about mixing memoir and fiction?” “Branding.”. They might make me struggle.

“What’s your theme song?” That’s a prompt I could write a lot on.  I’d have fun with that one.

But I guess the goal is to have fun with all of them.

I’ll work on it.