My December Challenge

 

Kind of an Advent Challenge

It is December 2020.  I am challenging myself to write a blog post everyday this month. 

It will be a challenge.  Over the past three years, my average postings per month were 5.5 with a maximum of 14 and a minimum of 0. 

I see a few obstacles with this aspiration.  First, will simply doing it every day.  While I did write a maximum of 14 in January of 2018, the median and mode for the past three years were both 5.  So, if I were to do 31 this month, that would really be something.  The rest of my life kind of interferes, in a good way.  Work and family commitments and priorities naturally take a priority, with good reason.  I am not a professional writer. 

Professional writers get paid to write.  It is their livelihood.  If these write news copy their deadlines are tight and real time.  I only know one novelist.  He imposes his own deadlines, also tight and real time.  He writes to a regimented schedule, with set days off, and vacations just like he worked for a corporation which in a sense he is.  I have read about other writers including Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens who were prolific and regimented.  Dickens bordered on the obsessive but that is pretty evident given his amazing volume of work.

For the first two weeks of this month my work commitments are to finish the term and prepare my syllabi for the coming Spring term.  This involves grading and writing. 

I wonder if I can post a course syllabus in this blog.  If I do, you will know that I am desperate.  I hope it doesn’t get to that.

Secondly, I have to find 31 things to write about.  Not only do I have the topic, I have to actually write about it to meet my blogworthy standard.  Now, my standard for blogworthiness is not terribly high.  But this combination of having the topics and doing blogworthy writing are more daunting than you might think.

Of the two, I think the first will be the bigger challenge to overcome but just by a smidgeon.  I am sure there will be days where, as made famous by the Seinfeld TV series, I will be writing about nothing.  This first post might actually qualify for this category.  There will be lame topics.  There will be controversial subjects.  I actually have two of these already in mind.  Of course, I will write my annual Christmas letter.  I will write about the Pandemic.  I will write about other writers, being Armenian, the music that I love, and who knows what else.  I will write about health and fitness.  I will write about family and friends.  I will ponder what kind of objectives a fellow my age could and should set for himself. It could be a lot of fun and it could be personally, you know, what ya call it?  Oh yeah, personally beneficial.

So, here I am on day one at 11:28 pm trying to get to 500 words and start my 31-day streak.