Day 80: Home

It can be difficult keeping up a writing challenge when you're at home. One of the first steps is to set up a decent work area for yourself. The best areas I've found so far are in my brother's old room, which has a desk and no brother in it until tomorrow night and the dining room table which will be covered with plates and food in no time. Another challenge is to try to fit in all your writing around family activities. I tried getting up early to take care of everything today, but I'll admit, I faltered a little. As long as you're geared up for the challenge and you refuse to quit, you will be able to weather the storm of going back to the place in which you're used to getting pampered and having to work. You'll get through it as long as you want it enough.

In preparation for turkey day, I wrote a blog post on a creative writing exercise called "home for the holidays" and I did some character writing prompts work while setting the table. Happy Thanksgiving eve, all!

Day 78: We Roll Along

Not too much on the news front today, though it was a pretty interesting weekend. Had an audition for the sequel to The Laramie Project, which would be the Chicago premiere of the play. That would really be an awesome project to be a part of. I also got to watch the Eagles win in the Meadowlands, which was unexpected and amazing. Throughout all of this, the writing challenge continued to roll along with some of my quickest writing days to date. Tomorrow and the rest of the week will bring a series of challenges as I will be far away from the place I've spent the last 78 days writing.

Tuesday will require planes, trains and automobiles to get me where I need to go, though I home to finish most of my writing early and may have to get up around 4 a.m. to fit it all in. Wednesday will require writing in my Pennsylvania home. Thursday will be a wild day of cooking, picking up my girlfriend from the airport and trying to fit my writing in before family arrive. Friday should be a relatively easy day, though Saturday may present issues with the late-night partying at my 10 year reunion the previous night.

No matter what challenges come, I will push through them and write my little heart out! :)

Today, I worked on some character writing prompts and I created a blog post about how to cure writers block, enjoy!

Day 75: Traveling

As the holidays come up, one of the most difficult challenges for everyday writers come to the surface. How can you get everything you need to completed when you're jumping from one flight to another and headed home to see your family and friends? The name of the game is definitely discipline. I will be getting up very early on Tuesday so that I can finish all of my writing, paid for or otherwise, to take a lot of the pressure off of needing to do it all while I'm on a plane or in an airport terminal.

That being said, when you're actually traveling, via plane or train, if you have a pad of paper for yourself available and a writing utensil (plus one backup), writing in transit is a synch. Know what scenes you plan on writing or make a note what you need to write about at the top of each page. I've used this method on multiple trips around the country and while it's tough to fit everything in, it's completely worth it not to "take a break" just because you're on "vacation." I would much rather have to make a few sacrifices here and there and complete 12,500 words during my 5 day vacation than have to catch up once I get back to Chicago!

Yesterday was my big Twitter #JournalChat and it was a ton of fun. Here's a transcript of the entire conversation. Did some fun back story work on Ted today and I'm thinking of taking a break soon to get back into the world of creating characters for 1,000 Character Writing Prompts, Part 2. I also wrote a blog post today about everyday creative writing. Happy Friday, all!

Day 47: Christmas in October

Today, I wrote a page of Christmas writing prompts for a few different reasons. No, me being in the holiday spirit isn't one of them.

Every Fall, the traffic on my website goes up astronomically due to the huge traffic on my "fall writing prompts," "Halloween writing prompts" and "Thanksgiving writing prompts" pages and I figured, why not have my Christmas page indexed and ready for December. Now, that's some Christmas planning ahead :).

I also worked on the character writing prompts book and started a Post-College Guide to Happiness giveaway!